Nights
by FreezeDryedGorgeous
Summary: L imprisons Light and then Light imprisons L and then L imprisons Light again. Sometimes they have sex, too. (wip.)
1. nights

**warnings: **sex! (and rather a lot of it), swearing, and general dysfunctionality. disregard for the canon timeline and canon in general.

**notes:** This fic is one giant cliche. With quite a few smaller cliches thrown into the mix. I'm not going to pretend to be doing anything revolutionary here. It's your basic L-and-Light-fall-in-love-during-the-Yotsuba-arc fic. I meant to come up with something new and different, I swear, but after staring down my word processor for a couple of weeks, this is what came out. In bulk. The cliches are cliches for a reason, anyway, and I have hope that I've fiddled with the execution enough so that it doesn't feel like you've already read this exact fic 68 times before. As you can see I tacked a pretentious quote onto it, so that, at least, should count for something.

The actual summary is something like: L has sex with everyone, FOR JUSTICE. Except with lots of angsty monologuing. I kind of don't know what I'm doing here, so bare with me, kids.

Any and all reviews are appreciated. Thank you for reading.

* * *

**chapter one - nights.**

* * *

_"All mortal greatness is but disease."_

- Herman Melville, _Moby Dick: or, the White Whale._

* * *

There is a riotous sea under his skin when Light touches him, and it never quite goes away no matter how much they keep touching, or fucking, or talking each other in circles with the same tired accusations and flimsy defenses. Round and round, and L doesn't know when it will stop, only that when it does, one of them will have to die.

"You'll kill me someday, won't you?" he whispers into Light's hair.

That makes Light laugh with the nervous sort of amusement you force when you don't know what else to do. "Don't be stupid, L."

"Ryuzaki," L corrects. Not that it matters, of course.

"Don't be stupid, Ryuzaki," Light repeats, sounding tired and annoyed, like a weary parent with a wayward child that won't stop asking frivolous questions.

"I assure you, I am not. My intelligence is far above average, although I admit it's been a while since I've been properly tested. Perhaps it's decreased in the past few months. I have sustained quite a few light head wounds recently."

"Are you trying to say I've fucked your brains out?" Light jokes, tone light and amused because Light is alway grasping at those sort of straws.

"Don't be crass, Light," L chides. He likes correcting Light, because Light hates being corrected.

Light snorts indelicately, because he is a teenager yet and, along with fucking people their parents wouldn't approve of, that is what teenagers do. "I wouldn't dream of it." That and, in Light's case, mass murder, but there's a time and place for the latter, and in this little sanctuary of their's, Kira is just a ghost, a scary story that - for the time being - they can choose not to believe.

L turns and kisses him, long and slow, like this is the last time he will ever kiss him, because L likes to be prepared for emergencies at all times, and also because he likes kissing Light. He likes the tickle of the strands of his hair and the way he digs his fingers into L's jaw when he tries to pull away - and L always tries to pull away, just for the feeling of being held close.

"You make me feel sick, you know," L says after a moment, breath whispering against Light's lips.

"Don't say things to me like that," Light says back, but he's not crossing his arms or turning away, maybe because L is half on top of him, and maybe because he understands the truth of what L is saying more than he'd readily admit.

To be honest, L's not sure what Light knows at this point, only that it's less than it had been. He's changed, somehow. L can never decide if he likes the change or not. There are moments when Light's apparently genuine innocence is a blessing, a sheet that L can pull over the truth to keep it at bay for long enough for them to finish their latest chess game or discussion of classic literature or quick fuck in the hallway bathroom. It doesn't fix anything, but it makes it easier, and L can only bide his time until the moment when that won't be enough.

"Like what? The truth?" L asks, looking away. The moon is still out, but the sky is pink, and the glow of it streams in through the high-rise windows to fill the room with an unearthly, hollow warmth, like a picture of a faraway tropical beach or one of those screen-savers of an animated fire place.

"I don't want the truth," Light tells him, cupping his face with a solid palm that pulls L around to look at him again. Even if Light's aware of a lot less than he should be, he's not a complete idiot. He knows that something is off, that they're hiding away from the looming enormity of what this all comes down to. Maybe he even knows what it comes down to, maybe he's just that good a liar and L is the one falling into the trap, falling since day one, instead of the other way around.

"What do you want, Light?" he ask the curve of Light's jaw. "Any idea?"

Light has to think about it, probably takes longer to come up with the answer than L does, and that either says something about how well L knows him, or else about how little he knows himself.

"Justice," he says, after a few minutes. L nods, sighing as he leans against Lights chest, supporting himself with the frame of the other boy.

"That's the problem, isn't it?" he asks, not really expecting an answer, because it skates too close to the truth, nearly wakes the great big elephant in the room, and when that happens - whenever or however that will happen - this will all end.

Light looks at him then, and there's a murky sort of clarity in his eyes. "It's what you want, too."

It's sickening how much L doesn't want this to end.

"That's the other problem."

* * *

**two months earlier.**

* * *

It starts, as all of the worst things do, in the dead of night.

Light is either asleep or faking it when L leans over and asks, head cocked to the side and half-chewed lollipop sticking out from the corner of his mouth, "Light-kun, do you know how to make chocolate eclairs?"

Light blinks his eyes open, too tired to hide his annoyance, and L thinks that's probably a good thing. He should conduct all interrogations with Light half asleep. It makes him far less personable, but also far more likely to slip up and spill something. As Light forces his eyes shut and turns away to go back to sleep, L revises his thought process. Light would never slip up. That's part of what makes the Kira case so enjoyable. Light is the perfect criminal.

"Light-kun?" he repeats.

Light sits up, leveling a rumpled, sleepy glare in L's direction that L vaguely notes the attractiveness of. Said attractiveness being _very_. "No Ryuzaki, I do not know how to make chocolate eclairs," he grits.

L nods, slumping in his seat. He'd expected as much. "That's very disappointing."

Light rolls his eyes. "Why would you assume - " he starts, then shakes his head. "Nevermind. Just go to sleep."

"Oh, no, I'm not at all tired."

L imagines he can see Light's eye twitching, like an irritable cartoon character. He had never watched many cartoons in his youth, concerned as he had been with more intellectual pursuits, but there was a serial killer in Tulsa, Arizona two years ago who had killed his victims by crushing them with anvils. L had done research.

"Fine, then _I'm_ going to sleep," Light says, falling back into the mattress with less grace than usual and pulling the blanket up and half on his head. Light generally employs a method of detached politeness with the various antics that L throws his way - employs it at everyone else, too, but at least then it comes off as more genuine - but it's the middle of the night now and it seems he can't be bothered with it.

L chews at his thumbnail and remains where he is. "Goodnight."

After a moment, Light sighs, opening his eyes again. "Can't you have Watari make them for you?" he asks, evidently trying to rectify his frustration from a moment ago - justified as it had been - in some misguided attempt to continue to perpetuate his golden-boy persona as the truth.

"Oh, yes, I suppose," L says, bringing a finger to his lip to tug at it. It's a measured movement. "I'd have to get him up, though, and as Watari only sleeps four hours a night as it is, I'd rather not."

Light rolls his eyes. "You can't wait four hours for some eclairs?"

"No, I'm afraid it's a rather immediate need," L says.

Light stares at him, brows drawn down and mouth almost quirked. It's sort of vaguely endearing in a way that Light had never once been before his imprisonment. His words and his actions are virtually the same, but his entire demeanor has shifted, and whatever clinical niceties he'd participated in before pale strongly to genuine decency that seems to radiate from him now.

Even when he's cruel, he's kinder than he was, and almost as if just to prove as much he scoffs and says, "You really are a child, aren't you?" Like L isn't the greatest detective in the world, like he hasn't seen and done things that would shock Light to his core.

"I'm 24," he says blankly, and that's measured, too - because everything is always measured, or else he'd be dead by now. He doesn't think his age will be of any real worth to Kira - it could only lead to birth records if L _had_ birth records, which he doesn't - and anyway, he's been planning on something like this. Let Light in, let him think they're getting closer, that he considers him a friend. Neither of them actually have to believe it, they just have to commit to the farce, and it will all inevitably lead somewhere.

Presumably, to Kira's downfall.

"Really?" Light asks after a moment, seeming to process the information and then store it in whichever section of his head is reserved for information on L. He's sure there is one. L's got plenty of files on him, both mentally-kept and otherwise.

"Yes. You're surprised?" He would be. L does not look his age, he's fairly sure of that, which tends to be beneficial in allowing himself to be underestimated for purposes of stealth.

Light seems to have forgotten that he's apparently desperate for sleep, the thought likely having slipped his mind with the introduction of personal information on L. His eyes are awake and alive now, scanning L up and down with interested scrutiny. It's so blatantly _Kira_ that it almost makes L less suspicious. "Well, yeah," he says after a moment, "You look like an anorexic 18-year-old."

L holds back an amused sound. The situation doesn't call for humor, and he's uninterested in introducing it. "I see." He tries to hit the stark balance between vaguely hurt, but mostly blasé, and from the way Light winces somewhat sheepishly, it appears to work.

"That's not what I meant," Light corrects somewhat hurriedly, sitting up slightly. His bangs fall in his face, no doubt tickling the edges of his eyelashes. He really is such an attractive boy; it's a shame about the mass murder.

"Ah. Is 'anorexic 18-year-old' code for something, then?" L says, cocking his head to the side. He's almost certain Light can't detect the teasing in his tone.

Light rubs at the back of his head sheepishly. "I just meant I thought you were… closer to my age." It's a valiant attempt, and if Light's opinion of his appearance mattered at all to the investigation, L might explore this issue further.

Then again. Given the nature of their so-called 'friendship,' it might be beneficial for Light to take a more personal interest in him. Cultivating a working relationship with Kira has been L's plan from the start - it's the only way to monitor him properly, and besides, makes profiling him far easier - and although he's worked to establish what, on paper, could be called a personal connection with Light - which wasn't hard, given their similarities - they aren't actually particularly close. Which seems ridiculous, at this point, as they're sharing the same bed and Light is looking at him with what appears to be genuine interest.

It had been different before, L's sure. Light had been different before. Farther away, like some distant, shining thing speaking down to the rest of them from the heavens - or, at least, the self-conceived, illusory heavens created by his monuments ego. That's gone now. Light Yagami is still intelligent, still slightly haughty and self-absorbed, but in a way that is not uncommon in a good-looking young man who's aware of his positive qualities.

He no longer sees himself a God. He's just a teenager now. What L doesn't understand, is _why_.

He has to do something with this, though. The situation has arranged itself perfectly for an opportunity of developing their relationship further, and L cannot shy away. _Go for the guts_, Watari had told him once, when he was a child. _You'll have to get your hands dirty. _A rather morbid thing to say to an eight-year-old boy, perhaps, but nonetheless effective. L knows where the guts are, and he knows how to reach them best.

L stands from his chair, moving over to the bed as swiftly as a passing shadow, and leans over Light to look him deftly in the eyes.

"Closer to your age?" he repeats, like he doesn't quite understand. "Is that because you feel a strong bond with me?"

Light's forehead crumples. "What? No," he says automatically. It's a lie, L thinks. Kira is undoubtedly connected to L, and even without Kira, L can tell Light thinks Ryuzaki more similar to him than anyone he's met, despite the many oddities of L's that he doesn't share. If anything is making him deny it here, it's L's wide eyes, the way he leans in, invades his personal space more than is perhaps appropriate.

"We're friends, aren't we, Light-kun?" L asks, only leaning in closer, like he has not a clue about social decorum or the rules of personal interaction. So close, in fact, that he imagines he can feel Light's warm breath on his cheek. Light leans back further, whether consciously or not, putting distance between them.

"Yeah, we're friends, Ryuzaki," Light says, almost cautiously. He gets this look in his eye, sparkling with that good-boy charm of his, like he wants to say something else. But after a moment he just looks away, mumbling, "I mean, most people don't imprison their friends for months at a time and then chain them to their wrists."

L can't help but pop a slight smirk then. He thinks it mostly goes unnoticed in the dark, anyway. "Most people aren't friends with mass murderers."

"I'm not -" Light starts, brow drawing down, and it'll be another self-righteous tirade, L's sure, about correct investigative procedure and a very by-the-book concept of justice, and not only are those tearfully boring, but they'll do nothing to bring he and Light closer together, so he cuts him off before he can really get going.

L flops onto his back, hitting the mattress with a soft sound and somewhat crushing Light's feet, ignoring whatever he has to say about not being Kira. "Do you think there's an eclair shop that delivers 24/7?" he asks, picking up the earlier thread of the conversation.

"An eclair shop?" Light repeats doubtfully, like he's half annoyed at L's behavior, and half exhaustedly resigned. "I… don't think we have those in Tokyo."

"That's a shame," L says, staring up at the ceiling dismally and chewing on one of his fingers. He wonders if Light will shove him off, or if that well-bred politeness will win over and he'll let L spend the rest of the night lying half on top of him. L's not sure he'd mind the latter. It's not particularly comfortable, and it wouldn't get him anywhere in the investigation, but Light's breathing is steady in the quiet room, accompanied only by the hushed hum of L's laptop where it balances somewhat precariously on the nightstand, and L can't help but feel a pang of unforeseen contentment.

"Ryuzaki," Light says after a moment, voice a low, pleasant spear through the buzz of thoughts that float through L's head.

"Yes, Light-kun," L replies without moving, eyes shifting in their sockets to peer at Light sideways.

Either Light changes his mind then, or hadn't planned what to say in the first place, but either way he's silent for a few moments, before looking away, to glare at the glowing red 3:56 of the alarm clock.

"Go to sleep," he says to his pillow, settling back down under the covers and lightly wiggling his feet in order to dislodge L. He looks tired and maybe a bit confused, in the boyish way he sometimes gets, the way that reminds L that Kira is little more than a child.

A child that treats the world as his play thing, and anyone he dislikes as a disposable toy.

"I can't," L says, sitting up again. He even does Light the courtesy of getting off of him, only to kneel as his side, invading his personal space even more so than before. Light glares at him over his shoulder, but it's half-hearted at best. If anything, he seems used to L's antics, which only means that L needs to up the ante.

If you are interrogating a man with electro shock therapy, you start with the lowest level of electricity, and if that yields no results, you move on to the next level - and so on and so forth until you get the information, confession or accusation or whatever else it may be, that you need. The same holds true with any sort of interrogation, however subtle. If Light isn't responding adequately to L's current methods, it's more than likely simply because said methods aren't strong enough, and need to be intensified.

"Fine, then let _me_ sleep," Light says, purposefully looking anywhere else but the place from which L's eyes stare out at him. His intention is to unnerve Light, and it appears to be working, but such techniques can only be employed for a short time before they fade into the background, easily ignored.

L has to do something that Light can't ignore.

"Please don't do that," he tells him, as soon as Light seems to be settled in to get back to sleep.

"Then what _should_ I do?" Light says, sitting up again, teeth grit and expression taut with annoyance. This clearly isn't endearing L to him. Not much does.

And it's sort of a snap decision more than anything else, something that hits L in the moment and, unable to mull over the possible ramifications - to weigh the pros and cons, to draw up mental charts, or calculate possibilities – he simply follows through on the experiment before any proper hypotheses can be made. Criminal investigation is oftentimes very measured and precise, with the pertinence lying in the smallest of details, but even so, certain gambits are necessary to keep things progressing.

That's what it's about - progress. It's when things come to a screeching halt and all roads lead to dead ends that you're really in trouble.

In order to avoid that, in order to fracture the dull calm that has come over the investigation in the last few weeks - defined only as a vague waiting period - L will have to act. So he does just that, leaning forward to tip his chin against Light's jaw, and press his lips, softly, to the edge of his mouth.

It's gentle, could almost be called shy, because L knows that he can't push too hard, has to time this just right if he wants it to actually get him anywhere. Not only will forcing the romantic angle no doubt make L appear more predatory than he actually needs Light to perceive him as, but he knows Light won't react favorably to being grabbed, or shoved onto his back. Friends or not, sworn enemies or not, their relationship is one of competition. L will go into this battle with plans to allow Light to, in essence, win.

After a shocked, frozen moment, Light relents, leaning into the kiss easily, seemingly soaking up the pressure of L's lips against his. He's a warm solid weight that pulls him in, trailing gentle fingers up L's chest and touching him briefly, before lightly pushing him away.

Light's face is flushed slightly, and his eyes are wide and awake, swimming with the electric sort of shock that isn't truly born of _surprise_, so much as it is some sort of violent jolt, unexpected or not. He keeps his hand on L's chest, not letting up on the pressure, but not seeming to actually want him to move away.

L licks at his lips, and just keeps staring. He vaguely wonders - not for the first time - if this is at all a good idea, thinks _probably not_, but resolves to continue with it, anyhow.

"What are you doing?" Light asks, breathing somewhat erratic, despite the definite lack of exertion required by the kiss. His cheeks are lit with a slight blush, but he doesn't strike L as being particularly embarrassed. No doubt he's used to advances from a number of people. It's not impossible that he had expected something like this to happen all along, what with the chain and the bed and the showers.

If that's true, then it can only work in L's favor. Feeding Light's childish vanity will no doubt endear L to him more than offend him. L doesn't want to play up the crush angle, though, because while, if he could sell it properly, it might work out very well, past experience shows that L is not as good at feigning affection as he'd like to be.

He'll have to make it seem like something simpler than that. Indulging curiosity? Engaging with a kindred spirit? Simple hormones? He's not sure, and at this point, he may indeed only have time to figure it out after.

"I would think that would be obvious, Light-kun," L replies, so softly he's practically whispering. He keeps his eyes wide as ever, and trained on Light's face, drinking him in with what he hopes looks like appreciation. It's not hard to affect - Light is, at the least, pleasant to look at. _Devastatingly attractive_, though, would perhaps be more accurate a summation.

Light doesn't appear to take that as an acceptable answer, but L doesn't care, leaning in further to capture his lips again, not quite so shyly this time, even licking slightly at the corners of his mouth, leaning over Light's chest to press against him.

Light just shoves him back again, almost looking vaguely amused, like this is just another one of L's antics. In truth, that's exactly what it is.

"Okay, okay, but _why_?" Light says, rephrasing the question, and still holding L off of him with one hand.

"I can't sleep," L says simply, letting himself be pushed. He slumps slightly in his half-crouch, trying to look as downtrodden as possible. Pathetic, even.

_Please, Light, you God among men, please take pity on me._

He lets his body language speak for him, offers himself up as best he can. Tries to appeal to any part of Light Yagami that he can convince to be attracted to him, or, at the very least, minimally interested. It doesn't seem to work. Light frowns, lifting his hand away from L's chest, as if he'd forgotten that he'd left it there, and then looks away. L tries not to let the frustration show on his face.

"You can never sleep," Light says, still not looking at him. L is still practically in his lap, but if he notices, he doesn't let it show.

L cocks his head to the side. "I want to," he says, and Light looks back at him then, which is helpful, because then L can look him in the eyes when he says, "I'm tired, Light-kun."

There's truth in the words, but that doesn't matter so much as the blatant, falsified vulnerability that they showcase - that seems to catch Light even more off-guard than the kiss had. L knows what Light wants, and it's easy to give it to him, to sink against him and say, "Light-kun," in a quiet, cut-glass voice that makes it clear what he's asking for.

It's no better than cheap porn acting, perhaps, but - like cheap porn - it feeds into Light's baser desires, so much so that it doesn't matter if L's seductive farce is believable or not. Light leans in and kisses him again, choosing to believe it, anyway.

And L, he gives it his all. He pulls out those sharply honed skills he hasn't used in years, groaning softly into Light's mouth as his hand trails down his chest, pulling at the material of his pajama shirt. It's silky and it feels good against L's fingertips, the cool fabric sliding with his skin, pulling him in slippery and smooth, like a pool or a stream or an ocean. L almost goes there in his head, almost dips away, because sex is a requirement of the job, but investigative sex is oftentimes more a chore than anything else, and if he could afford to, he'd gladly zone out. Lie back and think of England.

This isn't just about gaining Light's trust, though, it's about testing his reactions, about watching, about measuring. So he mentally catalogues the feel of Light's warm breath against his lips, of his fingers twisting through the ends of L's hair, of his thigh sliding up to press against the rapidly forming bulge in L's jeans. He can't quite help the gasp that escapes, and that's good - _so good_ - that's what he needs to do. Pretend he likes it, pretend he's enjoying it.

Pretend. Right.

"Ryuzaki," Light says, shoving him away for the third time that night, and L really wishes he'd make up his mind, because his cock is hard and he's got things he needs to do once Light's asleep, andhe really just wants to get this part over with.

Extended physical contact makes him uncomfortable in the first place, and prostituting himself is a fair bit worse, so if it's all the same to Light, he'd really thinks they should just get on with it.

Light looks like he wants to say something, that doe-eyed, questioning schoolboy look plastered across his face again, so L cuts him off, crawling further into Light's lap and pressing himself firmly against the solid weight of his lightly-toned supermodel chest. "Light-kun, please," L murmurs, grinding himself against Light's clothed hip, "will you help me?"

L suspects Light won't be able to resist that, the pleading - it's textbook awkward submission, and L is exceedingly good at it - and he's right, of course. Light cups his face in one hand, looking at him with those soulful eyes of his, and are they on a daytime drama, or what? L wishes that they could dispense with the teenaged romanticism and get straight to the point already. Sex, or something close to it, is what he's aiming for. Everything else is just window-dressing.

"Okay, Ryuzaki," Light says softly into his ear, finally slipping his hand down to tug at the button of L's jeans. About time. It's a good thing Light is so good-looking, so strong and solid and warm and, just, _nice_ against him, because that makes his arousal far easier to fake.

L cants his hips as soon as Light touches him through his boxers, letting a soft whimper slip out, which - as predicted - only makes Light grip him tighter, stroke him faster. He's - very good with his hands, to say the least, which isn't overly surprising, considering Light Yagami is good at everything, but it makes L's mental note-taking quite a bit less focused than it ought to be. He groans again, lets his palm scramble slightly across Light's back, like he's desperate - he's not desperate, not really, it's just a show. Just another game.

Sex is a game and Light may have the advantage currently, but L is the star player, and he will win this like he wins everything else. His method of victory will simply be - and _oh_, Light's hand is good - a little different.

"Shhh," Light whispers, as L quivers in his arms, and really, his ego must be enjoying this terribly. "It's alright, I've got you."

Soon it's skin-on-skin, Light's hand wrapped tight around him and L cradled in his lap like a child, like a helpless thing. Light murmurs soft, kind things into his hair that L can't help but imagine with a mocking edge peeking out from the corners, because there's no way that Light - that Kira - isn't thoroughly enjoying his apparent desperation.

It's not long before L comes gasping into Light's hand, and blearily, in the back of his mind, he feels a smug satisfaction in the sensation of Light's own arousal digging sharply into his thigh.

_Of course_, L tells himself, as his mind comes slowly back to him, like honey from a jar. Light is an 18-year-old boy. He gets hard when the microwave beeps, when a beetle crawls by. When somebody sneezes. It's just hormones, he's sure, but it's still slightly pleasing to know that he's got Light aching without even putting a hand on his cock.

His own breath is overly loud in the quiet room, but he doesn't attempt the censor it, just lets the sound bleed into the corners of Light's mind, lets him get used to it.

By many law enforcement standards, this is highly unethical. Which is why L sets his own standards, otherwise nothing would ever get done in these situations, and the apparently innocent would remain so, instead of being found out for what they truly are.

No one is innocent, L knows. Not even teenage boys. Especially not teenage boys. Some are just less innocent than others.

He slumps off and to the side, curling himself slightly around Light, and if the situation were much, much different, he might be slightly comfortable, body warmed from the exertion and head bleary with post orgasmic chemicals. He could fall asleep here, and wouldn't that be something? He sleeps so little as it is, so to give in, to succumb to exhaustion now, half-draped on a mass murderer, seems terribly ridiculous to his overworked brain. Though perhaps not as unrealistic as it should be.

Light looks down at him, like he's not quite sure what to make of the whole situation - which is a good thing, L supposes. He blinks up at him, almost smiles slightly, but stops himself when it occurs to him that that, of all things, might be too unbelievable for Light. Instead, he keeps his eyes wide, and speaks softly.

"Would you like me to touch you, Light-kun?" he asks, trailing his long fingers up Light's thigh in a move that he hopes comes off as more absentminded than seductive. This whole plan hinges on the necessity that Light not realize that he's being seduced.

"You don't -" Light starts, words cutting off sharply when L's hand lands on the bulge in his sweatpants. His eyes widen, before going thick and hooded, and he glances only briefly at L's face, before reaching down to wrap his palm around L's knuckles, guiding the rhythm of his hand in harder strokes. "Mmmh, L."

"Ryuzaki," L corrects, speaking into the crook of Light's shoulder.

"Ryuzaki," Light repeats, catching on the word with a choked gasp as he speeds L's hand up, working himself quickly through the material. L lets himself be directed for a bit, enjoying the feel of Light's hand wrapped around his as his cock presses into the other side more than he probably should. After a minute or so he shakes him off, and slips Light's pants down his hips to bring his cock out into open air.

Light's face flushes slightly, before morphing into an indulgent smile when he catches L looking at it, somewhat curiously. L supposes Light thinks he's a virgin. He ought to play that up, then, which means he probably shouldn't go down on him just now. Instead, he opts for a gentle, experimental squeeze, keeping his eyes wide and his mouth slightly open, biting his lips to draw attention to them, to tempt with them. To make Light ache for a time when L _will_ wrap them around his cock.

For now he just plays with it like a child with a new toy, jerking and stroking, until Light is gasping and mumbling something mostly unintelligible and slightly expletive, before finally seeming to get frustrated enough by L's slow tease to grab him forward by the collar of his shirt and demand, "More," in a gritty, arousal-stricken voice.

L, committing to his necessary role as the submissive partner, bends to Light's orders without complaint, speeding his hand up, applying enough pressure to get him off in moments. Light digs hard fingers into L's hair, grasping at his scalp to pull him forward and force his tongue between L's lips. Not having really expected the kiss, L's chokes a bit, but opens up to it anyway, lets Light in to do what he will, and accepts the muffled groan that's breathed into him when he Light comes in his hand.

While Light is regaining his breath, L wipes his hand off before rolling away to settle comfortably on the crisp, clean sheets on his side of the bed. "Thank you," he says into the thick warmth of the air. "You can go to sleep now, Light-kun."

He ignores the insulted grunt that Light gives in response. "You," he says disbelievingly, "you just -" He cuts off, either at a loss for words at L's oh so disrespectful conduct, or too exhausted to have this fight now. Either way, he simply rolls his eyes and turns over, shutting L's laptop as he goes, and settles resolutely in to sleep.

L lets him drift off, staring up at the ceiling and calculating what exactly he plans to do with this. Something, certainly, he's just not sure of the details yet.

He sleeps maybe fifteen minutes that night, and not a wink more.

* * *

Light wakes up with dried come on his sweatpants.

It's not the first time it's happened, but it's definitely the first time in a long time, and when it had - at those early stages of puberty when he hadn't the faintest idea about what was going on down there - it had almost certainly always been on the _inside_. He wants to groan and bury himself back underneath the pillows, but he blinks his eyes open instead, unconsciously glancing around to find L before he can stop himself. It's not hard, he sticks out easily in the monotone room, black hair an unruly stain against the cool greys everywhere else. He's perched at his computer, finger to his lip, and looking for all the world like he had yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that.

The first thing Light thinks when his eyes catch on him is, _Why exactly did I want to fuck him so badly last night?_

The second, is _Oh_. Oh yeah - that.

He wrinkles his nose at the sight of his wrecked clothing once more. It had seemed like such a good idea at the time - and isn't that a pathetically common thought? He feels like a filthy cliche, deflated and disappointed after a night of regrettable sexual activity. He might as well go back to university now, because he'd fit in frighteningly well at this point. Hand jobs - _hand jobs _- with his roommate. He'll be getting idiotically drunk and vomiting on the sidewalk by next week, at this rate.

The worst part, Light thinks, as he leans further into the cushions and tries to wish himself back to sleep - and there are just so many possible worst parts to choose from - is that Light doesn't even like sex. Or any kind of sexual activity. He really doesn't. It's boring and unsanitary, and although it's necessary every so often to function at his age, he doesn't engage in it simply for _fun_. It's not fun. It's not even mildly diverting, usually. Last night, though - well, he'd been… mildly diverted. At the least.

The second worst part - and he's calculated it all properly in his head - is that L is unattractive. Objectively, there's no possible reason for Light to be interested in tugging on his dick until he comes, unless to try to use sex as a way to divert suspicion from himself - which is something he would never do. Manipulating a person with sex is just low, and even if Light were that morally bankrupt, he'd never even consider that that could possibly work on L. That L even has a sex drive is enough of a revelation in and of itself.

Unless… well, given his imprisonment and interrogation tactics, it's not unreasonable to suggest that L's investigative techniques are not exactly ethically sound. In fact, he's far less likely to follow any rules of procedure than he is to, say, try and seduce Light into a confession. The idea of L seducing anyone is as laughable as it is uncomfortable, but Light remembers how unreasonably _appealing_ he'd somehow become last night, for no conceivable reason other than, perhaps, he'd decided that he wanted to be.

To make Light want to fuck him.

To make Light admit to being Kira.

That's not all that logical, of course, but then - for all that he likes to pretend otherwise - L is not a creature of reason or rules. He is blunt and cruel and unpredictable. He is the best in the world at his job.

And if that's what that had been, then Light actually feels quite a bit better about the events of the previous night. It's not his fault. L is brilliant and he had caught Light off guard. He hadn't had time to prepare, to think it over rationally. His strength lies in planning, not in improvisation, and now that he's got time to mentally work through this, he's sure he can come up with a way to shift it to his advantage.

He quirks an eye open too peer at L's hunched frame, watching his hair hang in thick tumbles across his face, and decides that, actually, he can probably think of a _number_ of ways. If L wants to challenge him on this level, Light won't refuse. He himself wouldn't dream of using sex as a weapon on some poor, unsuspecting person - but L, L is more or less asking for it. He'd engaged Light this way, likely for the specific purpose of playing a game, and Light won't bow out now and let him win. L is the bad guy here - Light is just going to show him that he can't get away with this kind of thing.

After a few more minutes of feigning sleep, Light makes a show of waking, looking around and coming to terms with his surroundings. He's a brilliant actor, and though L seems more focused on his computer than anything else, Light knows that's just a cover for where his attention truly lies - where his attention _always_ lies. Ten-to-one he's watching Light in the reflection of the screen, or at least listening intently to his side of the room.

"Ryuzaki," Light says blearily after a moment.

"Yes, good morning, Light-kun," L calls, not bothering to look away from whatever file he's reading. It's an act, of course, but Light pretends not to know that.

He thinks of mentioning last night, of asking - innocently, cluelessly - what it had been about. Instead, he just stands up, yawning like nothing's different, and says, nodding to L's laptop, "Can you bring that into the bathroom? I need to shower."

L nods wordlessly, picking up his computer one-handed, which doesn't seem at all safe, and following Light like an absentminded puppy.

The clink of the chain as L types from his perch on the counter is not an unfamiliar sound, but today it has the unfathomable and severely inconvenient effect of making Light so hard that he has to make a pointed effort not to wrap his hand around his cock and get off again in the shower.

If L notices his unease as he dries off, though, he, of course, doesn't say a thing.

* * *

It's mid-afternoon and they're on a bathroom break when Light slams him against the wall and kisses him. It's a little bit more awkward than it might have otherwise been, because L's barely finished having a piss, and hasn't even fully washed his hands yet, but Light doesn't seem to care. L had seen this coming - so to speak - miles and miles off, but for such a subtly brilliant mind, he'd expected Light to be a little less brazen with his acceptance of sex as a playing field. Maybe milked the coy school boy angle a little bit. Not that L minds the brazenness terribly - it sure saves him a lot work - but he might have expected a bit better from him.

Then again, he suppose Light has far less experience in using sex as a weapon than L does, and therefore can't really be blamed. He is, after all, a novice.

L had known since this morning that Light had caught on. He gets credit for that, at least, but then play-acting isn't exactly L's strong suit, so maybe not that much credit. If he had confronted L, if he had demanded an explanation, that - well, it wouldn't have lessened the Kira percentage per se, but it would have meant that Kira was just no good at this sort of game. The deafening silence had proven the opposite. Light had realized that L was trying to manipulate him with sex and had - if the current situation is any indication - decided to manipulate him back. So much for superior morality.

L bends in his hands, lets Light push him flat against the tiling and jam their hips together, pressing in close and sucking on L's tongue with something too measured to be blind lust, but too starkly intense to be completely false. Then again, Light is a fantastic liar, and L will not make the mistake of underestimating him. Erring on the side of caution is the only suitable option in these sorts of situations, so L will take everything Light does or says as a farce and a strategy unless it can be sufficiently proven otherwise. Light appears to want him, and the feel of his cock grinding against L's groin is certainly an argument in favor of legitimacy on that front, but L needs to operate on the assumption that he is really just working towards L's downfall, and this is only his means to an end - same as it is to L.

His head buzzes with the weight of the kiss, and the storm of physical reactions it evokes, but he needs to keep his mind clear, at least enough to remain in control of the situation, so he pulls back after a moment. Light lets him, resting his forehead against L's and smiling a sharp, hungry, angry smile.

"You didn't say anything this morning," L says, in between breathes.

Light huffs a laugh, straightening up a bit, but not moving an inch away. "It was awkward. Can you blame me?" His bangs are somewhat rumpled, and they hang in his eyes, but L can still detect the clear, calculating look that doesn't match the words. No, Light is not overcome by desire for him. Light is just trying to control him.

L cocks his head to the side. "I detected no such awkwardness."

He gasps, body jerking, when Light shifts his leg and presses his thigh further between L's legs, rubbing against him in a way that makes his mind blur with the spark and burn of sudden, wild pleasure. His head falls forward before he can stop it, and Light appears to like that, petting at L's hair with loose fingers and smiling a smile that L assumes is meant to be gentle, but just comes off as condescending. Though, with the way L's reacting, perhaps Light has earned himself the right to feel a little high and mighty. For now.

"You live and breathe awkwardness," he says, like he's poking casual fun at a friend, and not, in fact, holding L down so that his hips don't crush themselves against Light's with the brutal abandon he wants them to. "Of course you didn't notice. Us normal people, on the other hand," he says while getting a good grip at L's thick mess of hair, "don't exactly know how to react to out-of-the-blue sexual advances."

L wants to point out in the hypocrisy in that statement - seeing as Light is near on assaulting him during a bathroom break - but instead just tries not to let the side of his lip twitch too much when he says, "You seemed receptive."

"I wasn't thinking straight," Light bites back, still smiling.

"And now?" L rocks his hips forward slightly, watching Light's face loosen, eyes rolling slightly with the feel of it.

"I'm pretty sure I'm still not thinking straight," he says, and L means to knock out some clever response, but doesn't have time to before he's gripped forward and Light is kissing him hard and mercilessly, adding further to the aching pressure that's holding L down, keeping him pinned and stationary, even though he'd be far better off with more room to move around, to think and plot and _breathe_. Light is crowding him and L's got little choice but to open up and let Light shove his tongue forward, licking slick and hot against every corner of his mouth, teeth digging in uncomfortably at intervals and making him wince against Light's lips. It's close and stifling and rather glorious, in its way.

Light pins him to the wall, and L lets him, because even if Light is in on the game, it still works more in L's favor to be fairly pliant. He's not interested in turning this into a pissing contest of who-tops-who, because that's not what this is about. He needs to catch Kira, and he'll do virtually anything to achieve that goal, up to and including bending over for his chief suspect.

"Light-kun," he gasps, when Light pulls away, shoving him back and holding him down with a firmer grip than L would have expected from him. His fingertips dig into L's shoulder, and the ache sends strange pulses of pleasure swimming giddily through his bloodstream. "Please," he says, because he knows it will hit Light hard.

It does. He groans, shoves L's hands to the wall and rubs against him mercilessly with the length of his thigh, pressure so hard and deliberate that L's half convinced he's going to spill in his pants. Which, while not particularly detrimental in the grand scheme, would be rather uncomfortable, so he hopes Light decides he wants to strip him soon. It doesn't take long. L's jeans get shoved down his hips, and his cock get jerked roughly a few times, and that's all it takes. And a good thing, too - he'd rather not drag it out again, at least not on his end.

"Light-kun," he gasps again as he comes, because it makes Light eyelids flutter, the weight of it no doubt settling into him like a sort of disease.

And yes, L, can do this. It's been a while, but this is definitely something he can do. L is an arsenal, and sex is just one of the many weapons contained therein. He catches his breath, then keeps his eyes hard on Light's flushed face as he drops to his knees.

Light flushes further, and he looks vaguely unsure suddenly. "What are you doing?"

This is good. If he becomes too comfortable with the situation, it will only be to L's disadvantage.

"What does it look like?" he asks flatly, reaching for Light's zipper. Light's eyebrows fly up, but he doesn't push L's hands away. "Problem?"

Light looks like he's going to say something, but he cuts off abruptly, shaking his head. "No," he says, "no, definitely not." His fingers twitch slightly at his side, and L can tell he's, if not very, then slightly nervous. That's unsurprising. He is barely more than a child at this age. Perhaps that thought should make L uncomfortable, but he views the whole situation - as is his way - through a detached, clinical lens. Which is far easier to do once he's gotten off.

He considers Light's length with a vaguely curious look, before taking it between his lips. He can't help the satisfaction that burns in his stomach when Light gives an almost pained gasp in reaction. Yes, L can do this.

* * *

L's mouth is frighteningly, unprecedentedly warm. L is a thing that is cold and remote and _so not hot_, so what right does he have to feel this good inside? L is manipulating him using sex, using his tongue and his lips, and _fuck_, the edges of his teeth, and it's so immoral and disgusting and awful, and - and Light is spilling down his throat in the next instant.

His stomach shivers and quakes with the pleasure of it as his head thunks jarringly into the wall behind him. He feels cheap and dirty, but so unrepentantly sated that he doesn't really mind. He looks down at L, who's wiping at his mouth with the edge of his hand, and thinks that maybe this isn't the worst thing in the world. Sexual exploitation as an investigation tactic is against everything Light believes in, but then, Light's not the one doing it, is he? L's the bad guy here, the one using Light - not the other way around.

Light is 18. Light is curious. L is older - 24, apparently, however unbelievable that seems - the one with the power, the one who's keeping Light forcibly attached to him. No one could look at this situation and decide that Light is in the wrong. Light is never in the wrong.

So, it's all fine, then. It's fine to enjoy L's mouth on his cock, and fine to want to press him up against things and make him squirm and beg. Even if it's just an act. _Especially_ if it's just an act. He deserves it. L is a bad person and Light is a good person, and that's just how it is, so everything's okay.

L grabs onto the counter to pull himself up, and as Light straightens out his clothes, rumpled as they are, he can't help smirking to himself and saying, in as unassuming a voice as he can manage, "You're… adept at that." Which is putting it mildly, frankly. It's hard to imagine L doing that to anyone else - and also foolish, because why would L want to do that to anyone but him? - but it's surely a possibility. Either he's had tons of practice, or it's he's just that _innately_ talented. Light's not completely sure which idea he prefers.

L scratches at his hair casually, like he hadn't just given Light a blow job. "Is that meant to be a compliment or not?" he says, voice tinged with only vague interest.

"I don't know," Light responds, with genuine uncertainty. "It was - " he starts, then starts again. "Do you have a lot of experience? Doing that." He tries to frame the question indifferently, idly restyling his hair in the mirror. Like he really doesn't care and is just asking in order to make conversation. Which is true, of course. He doesn't care. L could blow the entire task force and he's sure he wouldn't care.

"That's dependent on your definition of _a lot_," L says, leaning against the tile wall, head tilted to one side lackadaisically. He doesn't seem to really be paying attention, but Light knows it's an act. Everything L does and says is an act.

Light takes his answer as a _yes_, if not a definite one. He sighs, rolling his eyes. "I should have known," he says, "You spend about half the average day putting things in your mouth. It's really not a surprise at all." Even if maybe it is. Even if the idea of L doing anything sexual or appearing - however momentarily - even remotely attractive is still slightly ridiculous, it does make an odd sort of sense. L is immoral and cruel, and sexual deviancy often goes hand-in-hand with those qualities. In fact, perhaps Light should have seen this coming a long way off.

L does that wide-eyed, clueless thing he always does, as he brings a finger to his lips and says, "Perhaps Light-kun just reads me exceptionally well."

It's all Light can do not snort at the blatant lie. L doesn't think anything of the sort. "I doubt it. Ryuzaki, you're really kind of difficult to understand most of the time. Even for me."

It's not a lie, but it's not exactly the truth of it, either. He always seems to understand - whether or not he wants to - what L is doing, the games he's playing and the theories he's testing. What he can't figure out is _how_ he knows these things, how he's so finely attuned to everything L is thinking. He must have just picked it up unconsciously, in the time before his imprisonment, when he'd still considered L his friend, and a good person.

He's learned better by now. He doesn't exactly remember _when_ or _how_ he learned better, though. It's a thick and blotchy spot in his mind when he tries to think on it. He doesn't remember a lot of things, sometimes. But it's nothing important, just stress from the case. Lack of sleep, perhaps, from L keeping him up all night.

"I don't believe that," L says.

"You don't believe anything I say," Light replies, long-sufferingly.

L seems to weigh that answer in his head before nodding. "That is true in many respects, yes." He pushes off the wall, the chain jangling as he slumps his way to the bathroom door, plucking up the handle with only the tips of his fingers. "Now, come on, I'm hungry."

* * *

It's the next night before they talk about anything worth talking about again. The casework they're doing to track down the current Kira is only of minimal importance compared to the investigation going on right here, in this bedroom and on this chain. Light is the center of it all, and although L makes like he is working his hardest to catch whoever's currently passing judgement on the world, his attention is really mostly focused on him. People are dying every day, but he can't bring himself to be overly concerned by that. It's cold, perhaps, but such are the realities of the job. He'd never say as much out loud to the investigation team, but he's able to admit it to himself.

He's not sure if he'd say it to Light or not. He'd, of course, play horrified, but L knows he'd understand. Kira and L are eerily similar in some ways.

They don't bother with small talk as they wash up, L lazily brushing his teeth as Light flosses with singular determination, moisturizes his face, and rubs something sticky and lightly-scented into his hair, as he does every night. He's rather overly concerned with personal hygiene, L's always thought, but then that's probably the reason he always looks like he just walked off of a photo-shoot on some private, European beach, and that L tends to look like he's just walked out of a garbage disposal.

He makes a show of finishing up some research, but it's little more than a pretense and he can tell that Light knows it, watching him with sharp, considering eyes from where he's propped up against the headboard, likewise pretending to read some book or another. It's roughly ten minutes before L shuts his laptop with an audible click and rolls over to more or less climb into Light's lap and kiss him unwaveringly on the mouth. Light appears to have been waiting for just that, because he casts his book aside the very moment L touches him, wrapping a hand around to clutch the back his neck, digging his fingers into the ends of L's hair to drag him closer by them, before abruptly pulling him back.

Light cocks his head cleverly, like he knows the answers to all the questions he means to ask. "So, I guess this is a thing we do now," he says simply, staring back at L with warm inelegance in his eyes.

L's expression barely shifts. "I guess."

He leans forward again, brushing Light's words away like small, inconsequential things, mostly just because he knows that will drive him crazy. It is something worth talking about, maybe - the way their ever-undefined relationship has shifted and reshaped itself within the span of a cowpoke of days to accommodate their hormones. That's how they're painting it, anyway, although L's sure they both know it's more about lust for battle than it is for one another. Even so, although he's still not completely comfortable with having Light's hands all over him - at being _touched_, at someone daring to touch him - he's getting used to the situation, and the sensation it brings along. When he kisses Light for the second time, it's not completely painful, and nor is he completely overcome with apprehension at what will follow.

It seems like Light is more interested in talk tonight, which L might find vaguely offensive if his sense of pride was in anyway intertwined with his appearance and sexual ability - but as it stands, just has the effect of rather annoying him. Light soaks up the kiss, snaking L's breath straight from his throat, before pulling away again and roughly shoving L off of him and onto his back without a moment's warning. L's head hits the pillow with soft thunk, and then Light is the one on top, looming over like something great and golden and beautiful. He stares down with accusing eyes.

"L," he says, leaning in so his breath ghosts warm and ticklish across L's temple, slipping around to the back of his neck and coasting down his spine with shivering ease. "I know why you're doing this."

"Ryuzaki," L corrects, barely thinking about it. He's not been Ryuzaki for a few months yet, but he slips in and out of identities so easily, and this one isn't hard to keep track of. Besides, he doesn't like it when Light refers to him as _L_, even though they both know that's exactly who he is. It's cold, somehow. The title is departed and cruel when Light speaks it, even now, after his smile has gone so warm and his eyes so honest. Maybe because it's so close to his name - like Kira's already caught him, and is now only playing with his food. _A disposable toy_, L thinks.

"_Ryuzaki_," Light repeats, like he barely notices the corrections anymore. He's looking at L like he can't see him, but is trying to. Bright, boyish eyes - too clever by a half - dig into him, and L feels almost fractured. "I know," Light enunciates, "why you're doing this."

Yes, L supposes he does. He doesn't know why Light's saying it now, though. That's no way to play the game, so either he's become far less adept recently - along with becoming far more kind - or this is just part of some larger strategy, greater in scope than L can possibly measure at this moment. Erring on the side of caution, he ought to bank on the latter, but there's something honest in Light's eyes that - no. It's a lie. It must be the most expert lie ever told, because if it's not -

_Caution_, L thinks. It has to be. This is Kira he's dealing with. At least, he's fairly certain it is. If not now, then it was at some point.

"Does it bother you?" he asks flatly, because it would serve nothing to blatantly deny an accusation as vague as that. He's not going to admit to anything directly, either, and he's certainly not going to apologize. As long as neither of them says it outright, it doesn't matter. They can still play the game.

"Of course it bothers me," Light says, frowning down at L like he's a particularly slow child who won't stop misbehaving. There's something like disgust in his eyes, even though L's pretty sure he can feel Light's cock digging into his thigh. Perhaps he gets off on moral superiority.

Heh, _perhaps_.That's an easy 95%.

"I see," L says, like he doesn't really understand at all, or care to. Light's frown just grows, but he doesn't say anything, so L continues. "Would you like to suck me off?"

Might as well get this going again if L's going to get any work done tonight.

Light's eyebrows fly up and he looks like he can't decide between righteous insult or baffled amusement. He seems to settle somewhere on the latter, shaking his head. "Alright," he says after a moment, and scoots down L's body without another word.

He's not overly skilled with his mouth - he clearly hasn't done this before - but L comes quickly anyway, mind fuzzing over pleasantly in the next instant, and if Light hadn't immediately nudged at him to return the favor, he thinks he might have nodded off soon after.

* * *

It's another of those unproductive days at headquarters where everything leads only to dead ends. The neatly filed reports are brimming with useless information and Light can think of nothing better to do than file them again, just to busy his hands. Maybe he could get some work done under different circumstances, but as it stands - with no further clues as to Kira's whereabouts or identity and, worse yet, L doing… what he's doing - Light can barely keep his eyes on the words.

"Would you stop that?" he snaps finally, voice low and sharp so that the rest of the team won't hear. His tone is probably edging into unpleasant, but it's not as if it's undeserved. L isn't exactly an arbiter of social decorum himself, anyway. "It's incredibly crass."

L just stares at him, glass-eyes wide and innocent, and _fuck_, he's got frozen sugar melting on his lips, doesn't he?

"My popsicle is crass?" he asks, as if the idea doesn't quite compute for him, even as he leans forward to take a nice, long lick from base to tip, and then shoves the whole thing in his mouth, completely casually, like the phallic suggestiveness is utterly lost on him. Two weeks ago, Light might have believed that, but given that L had kept him up half the previous night - another factor contributing to Light's lack of concentration, and funny how all his problems in life inevitably come back to L, isn't it? - with maneuvers startlingly similar to the ones he's now performing on the obnoxiously colored popsicle, Light's not exactly buying the clueless facade.

L knows what he's doing. Hell, he's probably reveling in it.

"If you do that with it, it is," Light says, quickly and quietly. "Quit acting like you're being paid for your technique and just eat the thing like a normal person."

L cocks an eyebrow, but doesn't demonstrate his obvious amusement any further. "Light-kun, I think your mind is playing dirty tricks on you," he says. Light kind of wants to punch him.

Instead, he grits his teeth, fakes a smile, and ignores L's vulgar slurping sounds as he gets back to the work. He barely needs to think as he goes through the reports, mind scanning for important details on autopilot and taking in the rest of the information, however inconsequential, without him needing to do much work. He's hit with that overly familiar sensation of wishing he had something more engaging to do with his time, something worth extensive focus, and it takes him a moment to fully register how long it's been since he's felt like this. The Kira investigation, things with L - yes, definitely things with L - had kept him so occupied, he'd barely remembered how bored he used to be before all this.

Well, not right before. He's not completely sure why, but in the months preceding his first meeting with L, he'd been strangely content in a way that he'd never really been before, and he can't quite put his finger on why. He's sure it must have been a mix of things - graduating from high school, getting into university, his relationship with Misa…

The last one rings rather false, actually; he's not sure how Misa could have interested him at all. Then again, he's not even sure why he'd started dating her in the first place. He knows he must have felt something for her at some point, but he can't recall it now. Not that it truly matters, as they don't see each other very often anymore. Things would probably be better for her if they broke it off anyhow, since she's under suspicion of being the Second Kira mostly because of her relationship with him. He wonders if L would let her -

L.

L, who had jerked him off last night, and whom he had gone down on two nights before that. L, whom he's screwed around with almost every night this week.

And Misa - his girlfriend.

It's like a flick of a switch, and it hits him harder than he might have expected it to, considering how little he actually cares for Misa. No, that's not true, he cares about her wellbeing. About as much as cares about anybody's, which is quite a lot, really. And he didn't mean - it's not _cheating_, because Light would never do that. Not to Misa, not to anybody. He and Misa haven't even ever been physical, so it's not like - it's - it's _L_, is what it is. L seduced him, practically forced him into it. L is the adult, the one in power, the one who is making a teenage boy sleep in his bed. Light is the victim here, and that's all there is to it.

So then it's fine. Light didn't cheat. Light didn't do anything wrong. It's L's fault. Everything is L's fault, and he deserves to hurt and suffer and be held down while Light -

"Light-kun?" L asks, cutting into his thought process like a splinter through thick skin. Light glances over at him, shoving the mental images away to the back his mind. "Is everything aright?"

Light smiles, even though he's not sure. "Fine," he says, because that's what he's supposed to say, and the word comes so easy, forming in his throat and twisting on his lips and sounding so utterly genuine he's half convinced of it himself. But he's not sure. Because that, what he'd felt, it had flared up in him like a flame out of nowhere, lit by feelings he didn't even know he had. He's been harboring animosity towards L for a while now, sure, but he's never - it's never been like that.

L's body spread out underneath him, long, pale limbs struggling as Light fucks him without restraint. He's begging, maybe. Bleeding, too.

The image rumbles through him, makes his cock hard even as it makes his stomach twist uncomfortably. Why is he thinking that? He is not the type of person who should be thinking things like that.

He has the strangest sensation, and not for the first time, that L can read his thoughts, and is just now examining the brutal pornographic fantasy in Light's head with vague interest, staring out at him with his thick, black eyes. All he says, though, is, "Would you like a popsicle?" tilting his head dumbly to the side.

Light declines, and tries to go back to filing. Tries not to think about L or Misa or anything, really, except for the reports in front of him, but the wet, noisy sound of L's mouth won't let him concentrate on anything else. Light really, really wants to punch him.

Instead, he waits the long hours until the investigation team heads home, makes sure to ask his father to say hello to Mom and Sayu, and smiles kindly at Matsuda when he waves goodbye, before grabbing L by the chain and tugging him into the hallway, not bothering to make it to their bedroom before he's wrapping his finger through L's hair and pulling him into a rough kiss. It starts off with an almost uncontrollable violence, but at that first touch, at the feel of L wavering in his hands, Light lets up quite abruptly, feeling almost guilty.

The image is still playing through his head, and he tries to block it out with the soft sounds that L makes against his mouth, the feel of his hips angling against him. He doesn't want to hurt L, not really, even if L maybe deserves it a lot of the time. Light is not that kind of person - he's _not_ - and he's not interested in sexual violence, with L or anyone else. He's not actually interested in sex with anyone else, truly.

It's almost like an apology, and for thoughts that L doesn't even know he'd had, but there's something sick and off-putting about being forceful with L right now, so he lets his grip go gentle, lips dipping soft against the pale line of his jawbone. L shivers and leans into in, nibbling at Light's ear and coasting spindly fingers up and down his back. It feels good, maybe better than any of the other times, because for those short minutes, cramped up against the wall of the long, white hallway with its blinding fluorescents, Light forgets about the game, forgets about one-upping and teaching lessons and how L is a bad, bad person, and just thinks about his ragged mess of his hair, the bones of his spine, and how they bend under Light's touch. His voice hitching on something like, "Li-" before he comes, panting against Light's shoulder in heavy, racking gasps.

* * *

**two months later.**

* * *

When Light touches the paper - when it all comes flooding back to him in a torrent of something great and destroying, swirling in him like a tidal wave, _like God_ - the first thought that becomes clear, as he sits there, shell-shocked in the helicopter, is that image: L, beneath him, bloody and broken and owned. He knows he shouldn't, knows it's not at all according to plan, but he _wants it_. He wants L.

Nothing has changed, and so has everything.

* * *

**two months earlier.**

* * *

The night casts blue shadows across the room, and Light's breathing is a steady, anchoring mantra in the dark. L's laptop has gone dark from his neglect of it, and though he knows he should pick it up, wiggle the finger-pad and get back to work, he can't seem to make himself move.

They hadn't actually had intercourse, but L feels, in a word, _fucked_. Empty and bled dry, like Light had sucked the life out of him when he wasn't looking. There had been something in his eyes tonight, something self-aware and almost dangerous, even in its gentleness. Like Kira had almost remembered being Kira - if he'd ever forgotten in the first place. Maybe it's been a farce the whole time, and this is just the first time that Light's let it slip up. But he hadn't looked - or felt, for that matter - like he'd wanted to hurt L.

Then again, of course he hadn't. He's a marvelous actor. He'd probably been plotting L's death behind his eyes the whole time, even as he stroked him, pressing ragged, breathless kisses to his forehead and temples. And even if he wasn't, even if there was a hint of sincerity in the softness of his hands, it doesn't matter. _Er on the side of caution_, L thinks, and watches the ceiling fan whir above him. It's surely not as complex as he's making out to be. L's brain has always had a tendency to overcomplicate things.

Light is Kira. L is L. Sometimes letting Light touch him is unpleasant - and sometimes it's less so. And that's okay, that can be okay. L is phenomenally good at his job, there's no reason why he shouldn't enjoy it. It's not like he hasn't before - but that was a long time ago, and… unquestionably different.

He hears the sheets rustle, and then the bed shifts, and he glances over to see Light blinking sleepily at him, pretty face awash with dazed exhaustion. "Hey," he murmurs, after a moment, smiling at L. The expression makes L's stomach twist with how genuine it looks, and he shifts his eyes down, tracing the lines of the shadows where they spill across the bedspread.

"Good evening, Light-kun," he mumbles back, half his face squished against the pillow, muffling the words.

Light glances at the clock behind his head. "It's morning," he says.

L flicks his eyes back up to Light, where he's lying on his side, almost mirroring L's slumped pose in the cushions. There is a sick sort of quietness between them, not stretched taut with awkwardness or distrust, but loose and easy, like they've been sharing a bed for years. L likes to think it's a simulated emotion, something he's projected onto Light due to the blatant similarities he's seen between himself and Kira from the start, but then he's not so sure. He doesn't like the idea of some teenaged boy who thinks far too well of himself being his kindred spirit, but there it is. He doesn't like the idea of having a kindred spirit - not only is the concept tacky and overly sentimental, it just rings false.

No man is an island, but L is a fucking continent, a perilous land mass of his own, and one that you need to cross an ocean to reach. Few people have ever tried to reach him, and fewer still have succeeded. Light isn't trying, though, not really. He's playing at trying, putting on a show of affection, but he's a child, and not half the liar he thinks he is. Not in this respect, anyway. So it's rather uncomfortable how close L feels to him in that moment. Like the ocean has dried up.

"Oh," he says softly, pointlessly. He's not sure what else to do.

"Are you alright?" Light asks, leaning slightly closer. He smells like warm skin and sex. L wouldn't mind if he kissed him, and he minds that. There are things he wants to say, but that he doesn't want Light to hear. Sometimes he wants to leave Japan, just call the Kira case quits and go back to England. There are cloudy days and rolling hills waiting for him, and it would be so easy to just leave.

L doesn't do easy things, though, and he doesn't give up. He's started this case, and he'll see it through to end. He'll see Light Yagami behind bars, or maybe to the electric chair. The thought lodges in him, thick and heavy, and to block it out, he tilts his head slightly and says, "Light, have I ever mentioned how much I like your hair?"

He does, actually. It's a nice color - strange, considering his genetics, but then he is an abnormality in more ways than one. It hangs in his eyes, makes him look boyish and young, even if he acts as though he's neither of those things. His hair is beautiful. He is beautiful. It's such a simple thing, and it's startling to remember. But L says it just to fill the silence, another facetious, empty-headed remark, same as he always uses to throw people off when they're getting too close, asking the right questions.

Light shakes his head and slumps, but he's smiling. "You're so full of it," he says, rolling over to face away from L. "I'm going back to sleep." His voice is kind, and it spears through L like something sharp and perilous.

Sometimes he wishes he could sleep, too, just so he wouldn't have to be awake.

"Good morning," he says quietly, as Light nods off again.

* * *

**tbc**

* * *

**end notes:** I'm hoping all the timeline skipping around wasn't too confusing? Because it's going to continue into the next few chapters (which I have mostly written but am going to avoid posting for a bit so I can bulk up my in-reserve word count because I write rather slowly and don't want to drag this out forever.)

Things to look forward to: sex! arguments! aiber and wedy! (some other things, maybe?) Once again, thank you for reading.


	2. lie, awake

**warnings:** more sex, swearing, and generally ridiculous fuckery. way too much internal monologuing. smoking. neglect of the timeline/canon events.

**notes:** alright, here we are with numero dos. this chapter, like the last one, is rather slow. if you're looking for fast-paced action, look elsewhere. there is the barest hint of plot here, but it's mostly just set-up and these ten thousand or so words are more or less devoted to lethargic make-outs and weird, circular thought processes. the first five or so chapters are going to be like this, I'd wager, so that I can get my ducks in a row. the second arc is when things really kick into gear (and yes, this fic has arcs now. I have big plans, guys. BIG PLANS.)

thank you deeply to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. you guys made my week.

* * *

**chapter two - lie, awake.**

* * *

_"See the omniscient gods oblivious of suffering man; and man, though idiotic, and knowing not what he does, yet full of the sweet things of love and gratitude."_

- Herman Melville, _Moby Dick: or, the White Whale_.

* * *

Light has a date. Well, in truth, Light and L both have a date, and with Misa at that. He's not sure if the situation is ironic or just unfoundedly ridiculous, but either way, he's not looking forward to it. Then again, at least this way he might have someone to talk to. They're trudging down the hall to the main elevator, and Light lets L lead, mostly because he's not even sure of which floor Misa's on. He's never asked, and if someone had told him anyway, it's since slipped his mind.

L's hair is even more mussed than usual, and Light tries not to smirk to himself at the state of it. L has been characteristically cold all day, but he'd certainly warmed up under Light's touch, pressed into another wall, same as last night, and manhandled into quite a state.

Light really does have to try hard to repress that smirk.

"Won't it be kind of awkward?" he asks once they reach the elevator, unassumingly, as if he's just making casual conversation. Truly, he's more interested in what L's general reaction will be than he is the actual content of his answer. "You, Misa and I, all together?" It's not as if he's predicting uncontrollable jealousy or something equally infantile and needless from L's side. He'd just like to know how he feels about the situation, and it's not like Light can just straight-out ask. He would never get a truthful answer that way.

"In what way?" L responds flatly, the lollipop sucked between his teeth slurring the words slightly.

"Oh, I don't know," Light says, deciding to go for the heart of the matter, "in the way that we just jerked each other off in the supply closet half an hour ago?"

L slides his wide eyes over to him, looking at Light like he's just said something insultingly stupid. Light hates that look. No one's ever given it to him before L. "You're not thinking of telling Amane-san that, are you?"

Light scoffs. "Of course not."

"Nor am I," L says, plucking the lollipop out of his mouth. His voice is flat, but there's something like a slight frown on his face, though it's hard to tell with the ragged strands of his hair blocking most of the view. "That settled, I can't see what would make it awkward."

Light feels the aggravation starting to seep in, though he's not completely sure why. It's something in L's manner, something biting in the blank-faced obtuseness that isn't usually there. Light lets his brow crumple, affecting hurt, because it's maybe more justified at this point than blatant annoyance. "Do you just not have any emotions or something?"

L's eyes narrow at that, and it's a foreign look on him, keen and forbidding. Light's not sure, but he thinks he might have pissed him off. God, he hopes he's pissed him off.

"Oh, I'm sure I have many," he responds, crunching his lollipop off its stick with a slick, garbled sound. "Just very few regarding you or your girlfriend."

That hits harder than it probably should, but just as hard as L likely meant it to. Light doesn't know what L's trying to achieve by being a raging asshole today, but if it's to make Light forget every kind, forgiving thing he'd thought that morning - in the cool dark, waking to L's prone, white body spread out on the bed beside him, seeming for the moment such a worthy, necessary person - he's certainly succeeding.

"What is your deal today?" Light snaps.

"I'm not sure what you mean by that," L says, as the numbers light up, one by one. They must almost be to the right floor, Light's sure, because it feels as if they've been stuck in here together for far too long.

"Fine," he says, "whatever."

"Fine." L's facing forward again, back an ugly hunch, and Light really wishes they weren't on their way to see Misa, so that he could just shove him against something and kiss him quiet, make him stop with the baiting glances and curt tone, make him open up and let Light inside - and _god_. Light half considers pressing the emergency stop button and just throwing L down on the ground and fucking him here, getting in him for the first time, and not letting up until L relents, until he does what Light wants, gives him what he ought to. Until L is putty in his hands.

The image from yesterday wobbles through him with sickening speed, and all at once he realizes that his thoughts sound suspiciously like the thoughts of somebody who's considering gaining control through sex, which is just _not true_. But it's okay to have thoughts, isn't it? Even if they're bad, even if they're shameful and cruel and make his stomach dip warmly with arousal. It's not as if he'd actually decided to fuck L in the elevator. And even if he did, he doubts L would go along with it.

Light sighs, wants to press a hand to his forehead to block out the constant stream of contradicting thoughts - good person, bad person - but he knows that would just look suspicious. Instead, he rubs at his temples and plays it off like L has wounded his oh so delicate heart.

"You really have no problem with the fact that I have a girlfriend?" he asks, quietly, like it could be either a challenge or a peace offering. He's not sure which it is - whatever L makes it, he supposes, and it's rather a strange jolt to lend even that much control to another person. But then, it's L, isn't it? L's got more control over Light's life than Light does at this point, and he's still not totally sure how that happened. He's also not sure why he doesn't even really mind it so much anymore.

"The only one who appears to have a problem with Light-kun's girlfriend," L says, cocking his head and shooting Light a smart glance, "is Light-kun himself, which is a matter that only concerns me so far as it relates to the Kira case." His tone is casual, but there's an underlying inquiry in it. This, of course, is just another test.

Light rolls his eyes. "Oh, yeah? And how does this fit into you're brilliant theory?" It's not like L is far off the mark regarding his feelings, or lack thereof, for Misa, but he really can't see what that's supposed to have to do with Kira.

"You were only using Misa Amane to help you kill criminals, and pretended to reciprocate her feelings for you in order to keep her under your thumb." Light goes for his token protest, the usual _'"I'm not Kira, Ryuzaki. How many times do we have to have this conversation?"_ lighting on his tongue before he can even think to say it, more for appearance's sake than anything else, because he knows that nothing he says is going to convince L of his innocence, no matter how reasonable his arguments are. L is not a reasonable thing.

But he's cut off before he can even begin. "That is, of course, only the case if you are indeed Kira, of which there remains only a slim possibility," L continues, and Light thinks he can see him smirking, a twitch at the corner of his thin, white lips.

And of course that's a blatant lie if ever there was one. They both know that L fully believes that Light is Kira, and will accept no other answer, no matter what the evidence says. Pretending otherwise - that he's actually giving Light a fair chance, the benefit of the doubt - is just cruel. But then, L has always been cruel. A bad, bad person.

The elevator dings, but Light doesn't move.

"I would never do that to someone," he snaps, the anger roiling in his voice more real than he'd like it to be. The fact that L thinks that of him, that L - who is brilliant, who Light wishes he could truly like - has got it so wrong, so backwards, is more frustrating than the mere insult of being accused of mass murder. "Using someone's feelings to manipulate them," he says, pointedly, knowing L will get the message, "is _despicable_."

That's what L's doing to him. Or trying to, anyway. _Despicable_.

"But cheating on them is just fine?" L asks, slumping out into the hallway. The elevator doors begin to slide closed and Light has to rush an arm in front of them in order to make it out in time.

"I - " he starts, then backtracks. He could explain it reasonably - could explain how only bad people cheat, and how Light is not a bad person, and how L _is_, and so it's clearly not cheating, not his fault - but L is just so unreasonable, so set on ruining, on _tormenting_ Light as much as he possibly can, that there's no way he'll understand. So, instead, superficially, he just says, "It's not like that. Misa and I are barely dating."

"You just said she was your girlfriend," L counters.

Light grits his teeth.

He's not winning this way, so he decides on a different strategy. One that L surely can't say no to, because it serves his own interests as well. "Well," Light says, "maybe I was just trying to make you jealous." They've been fucking around long enough that it won't be strange for Light to have developed feelings for him. In fact, the best way to play this is like he's the naive, lovesick teenager, swept away by uncontrollable regard for his older, wiser and terribly inspirational friend.

Yes, that's good. Brilliant, even. No one could possibly blame him that way. If their affair - as it were - ever got out, everyone would look on L with disgust, and Light with uncontrollable sympathy. That's how it should be, and how it will be. Not that anyone should ever find out, but it's always good to have a back-up plan.

L, though, doesn't go along with it. "Were you?" he asks dumbly, continuing on towards Misa's door. "It doesn't appear to have worked."

Light scowls. What the hell is wrong with him today? Thatsweet, needy role he's been playing for the past couple of weeks - false as it had been - is gone, evaporated, and what's left in its place is cold and cruel, and when they get out of this stupid, needless date, Light is going to bend L over the nearest flat surface and make him nice and pliant again.

Maybe it's for the best, though. Last night, or this morning, or whenever it had been, waking to L next to him, close and familiar and somehow terribly attractive in the early gloom, had softened him too much. Made him forget what this is really about, what L really is.

"Yeah," Light says, and the hurt is startlingly easy to fake, "I can see that." He sighs, following L to the door, and trying to sound as vulnerable as possible. "You can be really awful sometimes, Ryuzaki. Did you know that?"

L raps on the door twice, with a loose, slow fist. His face his blank, but his eyes are strangely thick with something black and gutting."Yes, Light-kun," he says. "I did know that."

* * *

"Come on, Ryuzaki," Misa whines, voice hitting shrill notes that make Light wince, but L barely notices. He's been professionally trained to withstand most forms of torture, including auditory overload. "Can't you just go to the bathroom or something? Light and I only need five minutes together." She holds out her hand, wiggling her five fingers passionately, as if that's somehow going to add weight to her argument.

Her other hand is cocked on her hip, pose one he's sure she's practiced in the mirror plenty of times, as she shows him wide, pleading eyes. L isn't moved, and barely reacts to her entreaty aside from the vague amusement he displays at the latter part.

"Really," he says, remaining hunched over a large, perfect square of tiramisu, "only five? I would have thought Light-kun would need at least six." He shovels a forkful into his mouth, chewing loudly. Watari makes the best tiramisu.

He feels Light tense on the sofa next to him and, though doesn't not look his way, L's sure he's being shot one of those sharp, echoing Light Yagami death glares. The ones that have decreased markedly in intensity in the last month or so. Apparently Kira glares better.

Truly, Light's been insufferable all day. He's playing innocent as usual, but with a heaping of doleful romanticism piled on top, which is as new as it is awful to behold. L's not even sure that Light's aware of what a lie he is, through-and-through, more an idea of himself that he's made up than he is a person. His innocence is fake, and his romantic feelings are fake, and L's sure the sleepy, adoring look he had given him in the early hours of the morning had been fake as well.

Light lies when he sleeps, and he wakes with a story on his tongue.

"Ew, I'm only talking about kissing, you creep," Misa snaps, bouncing on her feet like a toy doll. In some ways, she's perfect for Light. Maybe not as good of a liar, but at least as constant of one. L's sure Kira would have been just as proficient as an actor as he is as a mass murderer. "Besides," Misa huffs, and there's something catty in her voice which is just as inorganic as her blonde hair and red lips, "I'm sure Light can go for hours."

Light blanches next to him, and if it wasn't against his better interest, L would probably have actually laughed out loud.

"I'm sorry, Misa-san," he starts, but only because he knows Light will undoubtably cut him off, "but I'd have to contest that - "

"Oh my god, can we not talk about this?" Light's voice is rife with annoyance and disapproval - he's, of course, too refined to stoop to such subjects - but he doesn't seem half as panicked by the possibility of Misa finding out about his infidelity than L might have expected. Then again, despite it going against his highly treasured moral code, it's doubtful Light actually cares whatMisa, of all people, thinks of him. Which is just more evidence in favor of the Second Kira theory. If Light truly doesn't remember, he's probably got no idea what he'd been doing with Misa.

But then, if he's really innocent for the time being, what is he doing with L?

"What would Light-kun like to talk about?" L asks, around another mouthful of tiramisu.

"How about _anything else_?" Light snaps, glaring at him, and that shoots something uncomfortably warm through L's lower belly. Maybe he's just become conditioned to associate Light's ire with impending sexual experimentation. Maybe Light's eyes just look exceedingly _pretty_ when they're glowing at him with annoyance. It's not as if it matters, either way. The game is all that matters.

"Ryuuga Hideki!" Misa squeals suddenly, and Light's brow crinkles as L turns to face her again.

"Yes?" he say. Responding immediately when called is the first rule of having an alias.

Misa roles her eyes. "No, the the _real_ Ryuuga Hideki. I'm gonna be in a movie with him," she tells them, seemingly excited by this news for no reason that L can understand. Ryuuga Hideki is a terrible actor. "Isn't that so cool?" She's bouncing on her feet again, and she really does look like a pin-up come to life, doesn't she? She is a false, made-up thing, and even her excitement is mostly a lie. Her tells are easy, and L spots them all within seconds. She doesn't care about Ryuuga Hideki. "Light, you're proud of Misa-Misa, right?"

She cares about Light. That, at least, is not a lie.

Light barely looks like he's noticed being spoken to, alternately turning sharp glances on L and examining his nails uninterestedly. "Sure, Misa," he says, perfunctorily. "Although," he continues, like he really doesn't notice how desperate she is for his approval, "that's kind of a superficial concern, considering we're trying to catch a mass murderer here." He does, of course - he must. He knows what she wants from him and denies simply out of blatant cruelty. L can think of no other explanation.

"I know," Misa says, but she wilts visibly, falling back into her chair. "I just - I figured we could use the good news, you know? Especially since you and Ryuzaki haven't made, like, any progress on the Kira case lately."

It doesn't sound like a purposeful jab to L's ears, but Light frowns anyway, expression growing twice as bored and offended as it had previously been. He opens his mouth to say something, but L's really not interested in watching Light tear the poor girl to smithereens, so he cuts in with, "Yes, thank you, Misa-san. I feel quite cheered." He demonstrates as much by pouring himself another cup of tea.

"I don't care how _you _feel," she tells him, displaying her usual infantile pout, but quickly continues with, "But it's awesome, right?"

"Very awesome," L says.

Light rolls his eyes. "It's great, Misa."

That gets a genuine smile out of her, and it makes her look softened and kind, like a real person instead of the cover of a magazine. "Thanks," she says, almost sheepishly, and takes a sip of her bright pink health drink.

Light's eyes shift back to L immediately after, and stay on him for the rest of the date. Misa is even more bubbly than usual for next half hour or so, and Light just rubs at the bridge of his nose, looking bored and statuesque, as L devours the rest of the tiramisu.

* * *

They go back to their bedroom immediately after lunch, because Light insists on needing to brush his teeth, though L suspects that he's just trying to get him into bed again. Teenage boys are naturally concupiscent, and Light especially, who no doubt has something to prove in this arena, goes for sex as often as he can get it. Or rather, the adolescent trend of hands down trousers and excessive grinding that they've settled into of late, the not-quite-sex that still feels close and hot and penetrative, despite that lack of actual penetration. It's obvious that Light hasn't been very sexually active with anyone before, despite his popularity among his peers, and, like all mammals when introduced to things that are both new and pleasurable, he can't seem to get enough of it.

He's shooting L coy, clever glances in the mirror, apparently forgoing their earlier squabble, and L's not sure he likes that. He's fine with Light roughing him up and getting him off as often as he needs to, he's actually come to be quite comfortable with having those eager, golden hands all over him, but the reason he's doing this in the first place is not for the sex alone. He wants to delve deep, and having a fight is a good start - Light baring emotion, however falsified it is, can only bring progress - but it's worth nothing it he pretends it had never happened after the fact.

So L, slumped as he is against the doorframe, waits until Light has washed out his mouth and turned around before saying, casually, and with his eyeballs rolled towards the ceiling, "Light-kun's not a very good boyfriend, is he?"

Light's expression tightens, and he looks like he can't decide whether to frown or roll his eyes. "And what's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing in particular," L says, pushing off the wall to slump out into the bedroom. Shrugging him off is a surefire way to get Light's attention. The only thing he hates more than being under L's microscope is being ignored by him. From the crease in his brow and the tension in his stance, it's clear he'd rather be accused of a hundred crimes than be deemed uninteresting.

"What," he laughs, playing cool, but he's always been a warm thing, hot with life and fire and self-righteous anger, "so you really are jealous of Misa or something?"

L can tell that Light wants him to be, has been able to tell since their fight in the hallway. Light wants him kicking and screaming and pitching a fit that he's not Light's one and only, which, L's sure, is some sort of cliche high school trope that he wouldn't know how to begin to fake, even if he wanted to. It serves his purposes far better to let Light stew in his own self-obsessed frustrations than it does to flatter him. Giving Light what he wants will get L nowhere. Taking it, holding it just out his reach and bargaining for scraps, that's the way to go.

"No, Light-kun," he says simply.

Light pulls on the chain then, tugging L closer, and he seems to click into the game then, catching on a bit more slowly than usual, but taking up his lover-boy role with frightening ease. "I wish you would be," he says, once L is pulled right up against him, his breath rushing soft against L's lips with a ticklish hatefulness the crawls under L's skin and has him thrumming with the despicable urge to hit him and kiss him all at once. It's such a frustrating, ugly lie, no matter how factually true it is, because Light's dressing his desires up in tragic romanticism instead of leaving them bare and cruel, the way they're born.

"No, you don't," he says back, voice a cold stone, because he suddenly doesn't want Light anywhere near him. The thought of his touch lurches through L in wave of something great and horrible, and he wants him off and out and far, far away.

He starts to step back, but Light just grabs him closer.

"Yes, I do," he says, cupping L's jaw and pressing their foreheads together. His voice is soft, but unkind, with a taunting edge that fills L up and makes him hard, makes him want out of this room and off this chain. "I wish you actually cared about me."

It's a lie, he is such a liar, and at this point, Light isn't trying to disguise it as truth, just pressing his lips gently across L's face, keeping him so close, angling his hips so that he aches with the pressure and forcing the idea onto him. _I care about you_, his hands whisper, as they run over L's thin skin, but of course, it's a lie, because what else could it be?

"And why would you wish for something like that?" L grits out, grinding back, forcing the sensation on himself, because there's no way he's backing away from it. It sends pings of sharp pleasure through his groin, up is spine, to roll in with the tides in his head. There's a drawn-out, aching moment, and then Light is grabbing him by the face, fingertips bruising into L's skin as he pulls him close and kisses him with something angry and pure and breaking. L sucks his tongue when it slips into his mouth, but forces his own back just as hard, not submitting half as well as he has been lately.

But it hurts not to fight just then, and Light is egging the anger out of him, pushing him into a treacherous madness of sensation that L doesn't know from his own thoughts. It gets twisted up inside of him, and when they stumble toward the bed, half tripping on a mess of wires and knocking over a lamp in the process, L doesn't go down easily when Light shoves him onto him back.

They land with a soft thud, wrapping around each other, close and hot and tinged with a violent friction that seeps through L's skin, licking at the tips of his fingers and the points of his sharp teeth when he bites down on Light's lip. The wavering groan he gets in response is worth the way that Light grabs his wrists and pins them to the bed, spreading him out and open underneath and clawing his way close.

His smirk is smart and hateful as he licks at the cut on his lip. "Why are you letting me do this, Ryuzaki?" he murmurs, voice vibrating against the shell of L's ear.

"You told me you knew," L says back, voice low, like if he lets it too far out it'll get away from him.

"I want to hear it from you," Light says, tongue circling his earlobe before trailing down his neck, leave the skin hot and wet in his wake. "Tell me why you're doing this." His whisper sends sharp pincers of feeling shaking through L, under his skin and into his bloodstream.

Light pulls back to meet his eyes, to get a good look at him, and L stares back hard, gritting his teeth. "Only if you tell me, too," he says.

That makes Light laugh, tossing his head back to knock his bangs in front of calculating eyes, maybe obscuring whatever dishonest thing he sees in L just then, because he almost looks slightly fond. Like, not only is this a game, but it's a _fun_ game. And that's, L thinks - maybe that okay. Sometimes that can be okay.

"That's easy," Light breathes in his warm, heavy voice, leaning down to brush his lips possessively against L's temple. "I enjoy it. I enjoy touching you," he says, trailing his lips along L's cheekbone, down to his chin, settling just before his lips, "making you squirm." At that, he slips his palm down L's stomach, over the sharp cut of his hips to cup him through his jeans, alternately squeezing and gently petting.

L doesn't bother to try not to follow Light words. He squirms.

"I enjoy it as well," he says, in a rush of breath that slips its way out his throat almost by accident, but it's as good an explanation as any. True enough, too.

"But that's not the only reason, right?" Light says, unbuttoning L's jeans one-handed, and with enough ease that you'd think he'd had more practice than he truly has. "The great L never does anything without a really good reason, right?" He phrases it like a question, but it's not - it's an accusation. They've been dancing around this subject the whole week, and they keep their steps moving even now, never saying quite what they're doing with each other - _to_ each other - but knowing it so truly and innately that it barely needs explaining.

"Neither does Kira, I'm sure," L murmurs back, bending to accommodate Light's fingers as they trail down and under his thighs. He says it like he says anything, flat and unassuming, not a syllable belying the weight of the words. Weight they only truly have because Light hears them that way, hears the accusation in every word, and instinctively lashes out against it, to punish L for the things he says, for his own guilt.

Light reels back, a snarl that might be half a smile breaking his otherwise aroused expression, bending his pretty features into daunting caricatures. Dracula, Heathcliff - all the best storybook monsters are beautiful, L thinks. Light shoves him away slightly, but L is flattened to the bed and there's not much further he can go. "Which has nothing to do with us," he snaps, which is maybe more out of place than it ought to be. This is the game, Light knows that - "_Yes, you're Kira," - "No, I'm not," - Yes, you are," - "No, I'm not," - _This is how they've always played it. "Can you not just for one minute separate Kira and I in your head into two distinct beings?"

He looks seriously enraged by this fact, too, as if they hadn't all been taking it as a given that Light is regarded as Kira by default in L's mind in all given situations. Like he believes his innocence so fully that he and Kira being anything _but_ separate is foreign and unaccountable. To L, it's quite the opposite. The idea that Kira could be anyone else is simply unallowable.

L is always right.

And if Light Yagami isn't a criminal mastermind, then what the hell is L doing with him?

"I'm afraid not," is all he says in reply, "That would make things far too complicated." It's the truth, but it's wrapped in a lie, sold like an emotional dilemma instead of a logical one.

Light's laugh in response is far too cynical to mesh with his idealistic, golden image, and L knows he's getting a better peek behind the mask than Light has ever intended to give him.

"Things are already complicated, _Ryuzaki_." He enunciates the name ridiculously, like a jape. A cruel joke, at somebody's expense, though L's not 100% percent sure whose. His, for selling the farce? Or Light's, for going along with it? "Sleeping with a suspect?" he nearly spits, leaning over L with an overbearing presence that he seems to have pulled out of the ether, the shining ends of his hair flicking over the tip of L's nose. It feels good. He's still hard.

"Do you know what would happen if my dad found out about this?" Light breathes in his ear, maybe meaning it to sound threatening, but the words sting with arousal, a tight sort of coiled heat that bubbles up out of Light, through L, to hang between them like some thick, visceral tether. Just another chain. "Or anyone on the investigation team? You know what they'd think of you, right?"

L doesn't bother trying not to roll his eyes.

"Whatever you wanted them to think, I suspect," he says.

Light sneers, and moves to bite L, teeth digging almost caressingly into his lips. He pulls back with an aching tug, and L quivers under it. It feels better than it should, and that's maybe the worst part.

"They'd think you were some twisted pervert who forced me into it," he says, leaning back down, tilting his head around to whisper into L's ear. "They'd take me away, your precious prisoner. Then who would you blame for being Kira?" He's playing with L's hair, twisting his fingers in it softly, almost reverently, like he can't pull too hard or something will fracture. It doesn't last long. "Who would you throw accusations at, just so that you can look like you know what you're doing?" He's pulling at L's roots then, tugging him up into a bent-back stretch that shoves L's groin straight up against Light's thigh.

L's voice catches in his throat, choking him softly as Light bears down on him, pressing him so deep into the bed he feels like he could just _sink_. Like they could disappear and never come up for air. He meets Light's hard eyes, hips jerking up to grind back against his, so close it's claustrophobic. "They won't take you away," he says against Light's lips, warm breath hitting them both in the face. "I will bring you to justice."

He half expects that to be the final straw, for Light to throw him off, label him a lost cause and be done with the whole sorry mess of this staged seduction, but something in the words sparks him, just makes him harder against L's hip, pushing in deep, one hand shoving down L's zipper and slipping inside.

"I want to fuck you," L feels against his ear, and his body quakes a little at that, the words eliciting an almost conditioned reaction than makes him want to run, run, run away, as fast as he can.

"Not now, Light," he says, because it's better than any excuse or explanation as to why _he can't_, and he owes none, anyway.

Light frowns, but melts it quickly into a smirk. "What, are you afraid?" he asks, trailing one hand up to play over L's nipple through his shirt, voice as taunting as it is self-satisfied, but it goes strangely honest with the next words. "I won't hurt you." He pulls back to look down at L, see him full in the face. "I won't hurt you," he repeats.

L stares back up at him, and doesn't really know what to say to that, or what he even truly thinks. There are a million possibilities, so many factors to catalogue, so much to deduce. All that floats to the forefront of his mind is, _Light is a liar_.

Light, who feels so good against him. Light, who has nice eyes and warm hands. Light, who says he won't hurt him. _Light is a liar_.

"_Not now_, Light," L repeats.

Light groans, but listens, tucking his head into L's shoulder and leaning down to jerk him off with venomous intensity.

* * *

Light is angry when he touches L, and he is angry when L bites back his harsh gasp, and fucking _furious_ when L comes in his palm. There's no reasonable explanation for it, no A equals B equals a cause for Light's thundering mood, there is just something in the two of them, something in the moment, that stabs him with such weighty, unaccountable _feeling_ that he's not sure what to do but rage it all out. Anger is easy. Anger at L, especially, is so practiced, it's practically second nature. He can do it with his eyes closed. And does.

By the time he gets L off, he's decided that that's enough, that he doesn't even want L touching him, taking from him whatever it is he always takes. He'd started this with some object, to get inside, to work his way into L without him truly noticing, but he'd played his hand too soon, and there's no chance of having it like he'd wanted to, so the best course of action would just be to pull out, retreat and re-strategize for the next time. The next touch in whatever dark corner they end up in.

But as soon as he pulls away, L is digging his long, spindly fingers into Light's hips, pressing him to the bed and unbuttoning his jeans, ducking his head in the next moment to practically salivate all over Light's cock, before taking it in his mouth, only adjusting for a second before sucking it all the way in. Light's hips cant without him meaning them to, and he briefly debates trying to shove L off before deciding that refusing a blow-job would look too suspicious, and that aside, is just fairly counterintuitive on all fronts.

L's clearly practiced on enough popsicles to know what he's doing with the cock he's got his lips wrapped around, sucking it harder, taking more, like something he wants instead of something he's forcing himself to do for the sake of the investigation.

They both know what this is, and it's not a budding romance on the job. L is taking advantage of him, and therefore Light has the right to take advantage of all the potential benefits that that offers. L's hot, cruel mouth is just one of them. Light thrusts into it without a care of whether or not he's hurting him, sort of hopes he is, and doesn't take long after that to come thickly down his throat, anger pouring out of him as his nerves thrill with the feeling. His head spins, and the room spins with it. He can't count the number of problems he's sure could be solved if L would just let Light fuck him.

Light wilts immediately after, settling into the cushions like he'd planned it this way all along, that that was L bending to his will, instead of the other way around.

"That was really good," Light groans, pulling L up to speak into his hair. It's feathery, an awful mess, and it feels good tickling his face. "How are you so good at that?" he asks, without really asking. There's something giddy edging his tone, like the anger has flipped completely in on itself to something like contentment.

"I'm good at everything," is all L says in response, not looking at him. Whether he's bodily exhausted from the work he'd just done on Light, or his earlier orgasm, or the tenuous, unsettling fights that had preceded this particular romp, Light neither knows nor cares. He pulls him close, dragging his hands all over L, making sure he's there, close and comfortable and not really his enemy. Not truly.

Maybe they've faked friendship so well, they've slipped into it. Maybe Light's just such a good person, he can forgive all L's wrongdoings. Maybe it's just the sex, twisting up his head and making him think calming, gentle things that he'd never consider otherwise.

"Except for social skills," Light says, amusing himself greatly in his post-orgasmic haze, "and personal hygiene. And solving this case." The last shakes through him as a joke, wrapped up in a bizarre sort of dark, dirty humor that he hardly ever indulges in. Clearly L is corrupting him. He snuggles closer against L's stick-bone limbs and mess of black hair. He feels very corrupted.

"Light-kun." L's voice cuts through the heady quiet after a moment, a stab in the dark, and Light's sure he knows what he's going to say before he even begins to say it.

It's always the same song and dance, always, _"But I have solved this case, Light-kun,"_ like the world only makes sense, only spins properly on its axis, if Light is Kira and Kira is Light. Maybe for L, it does. Light can't decide whether he wants to get angry about that, and ultimately supposes that must mean that he's not. He shifts on the cushions, pressing his forehead to L's cheek. His skin is so warm, and this is such an awful situation that it's gone all the way around the circuit, and flipped back to okay. Him, here, with L - this is okay.

Light doesn't let L get on with whatever he means to continue with, just presses their lips together and breathes him in, a calming, quieting sort of touch that shakes through the both of them. It's more than okay. It's nice.

"There's a part of me that hates you so much," he half-laughs, comfortable enough now to let the truth fade out of him, if only a little. L stiffens, but not for longer than a moment. He must understand.

Yes, that's the thing about he and L. They may not like each other, may be awful to one another in the subtle, aching ways that tear a person apart, but they _understand_ each other. Even when L goes on and on about his precious theories and deductions that make no earthly sense, even then, Light _understands_. L is a strange creature who speaks in a foreign tongue, but Light has cracked the code, knows his language, knows _him_.

It's sad, almost, because under different circumstances, they could have been so great together.

But then - then what does that even mean? What circumstances? This is something that Light _knows_, knows like his breath and the lines on his palms, but he's not sure _how_ he knows it. That seems to be a common theme of late. There are ideas in his head, and he doesn't know how they got there only that something in him insists they're the truth. But maybe that's wrong. The idea of L as his enemy, as his equal but opposite, is so deeply ingrained into him, but it doesn't have to be reality. Here they are, sharing a bed, practically fucking - why shouldn't they be on the same side? Not just superficially, the investigation team, but internally, too. L's not so different from him, really, he's just a bit more cynical, a bit more cruel. Light can help him.

Hell, Light _should_ help him. It's practically his moral duty.

He turns, sitting up, and looking down at L where he lolls next to him, bleary-eyed and dull-looking, but Light's sure that there's so much going on in that head of his, that brilliant head. "And then," he continues his earlier tangent, even though minutes have passed in between, because he's sure L can catch up, "there's another part of me that really, really likes you."

L blinks at him.

"Well, isn't that nice," he says to the ceiling, barely lending the words a single dip of meaning.

"I mean it," Light says, because, of course, L thinks he's playing another head game, making up another strategy - but that's what _L_ does, not Light. Light's not like that.

"Of course you do," L says, still not looking anywhere but straight ahead, up and up, like he can see right through the roof. Like he can see through anything. He almost sounds annoyed, actually, and that annoys Light. "You fully believe everything you say. That's the problem."

Light tries not to let his brow crumple, tries not to let on that he's not even really sure what L's talking about. This is a new strategy. This isn't something Light's heard before. L usually insists that he's lying about everything. If anything, this is probably just a different method of accusation, one that L is leading up to, so Light makes sure to watch his words.

"i would think that would be a good thing," he says, "having conviction." Not sounding overly confused, but unsure enough to make it clear that whatever point L is trying to make isn't really connecting. Which is L's fault, of course - he's brilliant at figuring things out, but woe, if he has to attempt to explain them to anyone else. It tends to end in tears. Usually Matsuda's.

"That's not what I mean," L says, after a long pause, and then, quite suddenly, he's up, having readjusted his jeans at some point that Light hadn't taken notice of, looking for all the world just as mussed as he usually does. He paces the length of the room, or at least as far as the handcuff chain will allow him to reach, stopping and turning automatically, like the length between he and Light is already lodged somewhere in his brain. There's something striking and probably tragic in that, but Light can't quite spot it now, and isn't even sure he wants to.

He stands, too, watching L zig-zag back and forth.

"What _do_ you mean?" he asks, taking the moment to button his own shirt and set his hair right. He'll need to comb it again.

After a thin, drawn-out moment, L stops and faces him. There's no head-tilting, no lollipops sticking out of his lips, and though L's not standing particularly straight, the slump isn't half as pronounced as usual. Without all of his usual off-putting mannerisms, L looks strangely real in that moment. Like all the rest of the time, he's just a mirage of himself. A caricature. He's not bothering with the mask this time, and it's half thrilling, half terrifying. Part of Light just wants to cover him up again.

Because whatever he says is going to be something that Light doesn't want to hear.

"You're not you, Light," he says simply. His hair is drooping in front of his eyes, but instead of being comical, like usual, it's - weirdly attractive. "Something is different. Something has changed. Something is… missing." L looks down at his fingers for a moment, then back up to catch Light's gaze squarely, and hold it hard. "Does any of that seem true to you?"

The words seep sickly into him and don't let up. His immediate reaction is to reject them, reject all of it as another strategy - and maybe it is, it probably is, but then it's a really good one. Because that - there's something in L's words then that strikes Light somewhere that he's afraid to look. Like there's some sewn-up hidden compartment in him that he forgot the location of, and lost the key to, but it's there, it's _there_ - or, no. No. That's crazy.

L is crazy - an illogical thing, he can't help it - and he's making Light crazy, too. Because Light is fine, better than fine, really. He's working for justice, he's working with L, he's _with_ L. And L needs him, needs him there to keep his head on straight, to stop him when he comes up with crazy conspiracy theories like this - not buy into them.

Light is fine. L is the one who is _so not_ fine. L is always the problem - and he needs Light to help solve him.

"No," he says calmly, because getting angry won't help. Light has been angry at L for so long, for some reason he can't really remember - the imprisonment, the accusations; it sounds true, but it feels false - and it's not gotten him anywhere. "What it seems like is a distraction tactic so you don't have to think about _us_."

And Light knows the way he says it is childish and overly romantic, but it's still true, unlike anything L says. L's giving him a look almost like disappointment, like he'd been expecting something else. Like Light is a student who'd almost gotten the right answer, but changed it at the last moment. He looks like he's going to say something else, demand more, and Light almost wants him to, so that he'll have a reason to feel this odd and displaced, but L lets it go, allowing whatever the moment had been to slip away.

"Us?" L says, and from the way his face shifts, Light thinks maybe he's lifted his eyebrows, but they're mostly obscured by his hair, so it's hard to tell. "I apologize," he says, and his voice has gone lighter, almost humorous at this point - whatever weight had been there before gone now, "was I supposed to be doodling your name in my notebook with hearts around it?"

Light even pops a smile at that. "Couldn't hurt."

It pulls its way out of him, something unexpected, and unexpectedly kind. There's a generosity of sentiment swirling in him, and he feels suddenly like a better person than he has in a long time. L has been dragging him down, it seems, and that's not how it's supposed to be. If anything, he should be helping L up.

And it's not just his imagination, he's sure, that L is feeling it, too. There's been a heaviness, a pall on them all this time, since that first startling introduction at the commencement ceremony, through every word and gesture and touch. Interacting with L is like playing a long, complicated game that you don't know all the rules to - like chess on a sugar high - and it can be so, so riveting, a dance of strategy and quiet mayhem, but it's also _exhausting_. Light is exhausted. And he doesn't have to look at L's dark circles or his gaunt pallor to know that L is probably even more so. Light's got no idea about his past, or his history, knows only that he's been catching criminals for a _very_ long time, and L doesn't strike him as the kind of person who take breaks.

It hits him just then that maybe, just maybe, L is the way he is - blunt and cruel and cold - because he doesn't know how to be anything else.

And this moment, it's like a breath of fresh air. Like the tiniest, frailest instant of peace in an ongoing whirlwind of accusations and denials and necessary emotionlessness. Maybe it's a bad time - hell, it's probably the worst time, in the middle of a case of this magnitude - but Light wants to help L slow down, to slow down with him and just find a place to hide for a little while.

"Sometimes, Light," L says, and there's something easy in his expression that Light doesn't really recognize, but enjoys all the same, "I really do like you, too."

This is good, this can be good. They don't need to always play games. They don't need to play games at all. If L could just _trust him_, if he would just listen, he would realize Light's innocence, and then they could track down the real Kira together, they could be an unstoppable team, _together_. But that's, that's a different matter altogether. For now, he just tugs on the chain, lightly, pulling L back to the bed, but not to his lap. L lets himself be pulled, settling next to Light on the cushions.

Light trails a hand through L's hair, brushing it out of his eyes. L just keeps looking at him, still studying him, of course, but it's less clinical, less far away and detective-like, and more informal - close and almost intimate. That's not so bad. He doesn't mind that sort of scrutiny half as much.

"I like that," Light says, pulling his hand back, and he's referring to the way L had said his name, "when you drop the honorific." L's brow twists, and it seems as if he hadn't even noticed that he'd done it. Light understands that. Sometimes he says L instead of Ryuzakiwithout actually meaning to. It's just that he thinks of L as L, and nothing else. "It feels like you're acting like a real person, instead of just putting on a show for everyone," he continues, and adds, after some thought, "and for me."

There's something like a smile teasing the edges of L's expression. He looks unaccountably good like that. "Yes, I am quite a fake, aren't I?" he says. "We have that in common, I suppose." There's nothing accusing in the words, even though there could have been, would have been, any other day this week. But today is different. This moment is different.

"We have a lot in common," Light responds, settling back against the pillows, gently tugging at L to follow him. L concedes easily, and he truly does look _so tired_. Light lets him settle against his chest, strokes a hand through his hair, and thinks maybe if he can get L to sleep, that will be a good start. A start of what - he's not sure. He just knows that if they go on the way they've been going, it's not going to end well for anyone.

An he doesn't want that, because despite all they've done to each other - despite the little, familiar voice in the back of Light's head that whispers, _he's your enemy_ - Light thinks he might actually, truly and genuinely _like_ L.

* * *

L sleeps long and he sleeps deep, and if he has dreams, they're feverish and half-clear and gone the moment he wakes, eyes cracking open in the warm, half-lit glow of the setting sun. It's mostly dark in the bedroom, but the glow of Light's laptop is cool and bright from where it rests, propped up in front of him.

"Did we miss a meeting?" L says, and chokes slightly on the words in his throat, whispering them softly.

Light's eyes flick up as soon as he speaks, and he looks refreshed and reordered, put back together after the startling intensity of their last encounter. L still feels rather wrecked and reeling from it, the mess of his hair flopped in his eyes, and his jaw aching slightly in the place where Light's fingers had gripped him so tightly, grabbing him close. He doesn't feel rejuvenated - in fact, sleep usually has the effect of exhausting him further, because it reintroduces what he's tricked his body into not needing, and all of a sudden he'll remember how good it feels to just stop for a little while.

Light smiles at him, and it looks so genuine that L decides on principal that he ought not to trust it.

"I called down and told them you were sleeping," he says, setting his laptop aside. "Since you barely ever rest, everyone understood. Matsuda wished you pleasant dreams." He says the last part with a deplorable, almost sheepish amusement. Like he feels bad for poking fun at such an easy target. That, at least, hadn't been a quality that had seemed inherent in the old Light.

And it's so strange to think of there _being_ an old Light, and a new one, and a Kira mixed up in it all, too. But the facts, as they stand, present very few other reasonable solutions. But then how reasonable is this? Has Light even truly changed, or is L just projecting a change onto him in order to justify his newly found… not fondness, per se, but something like it. An attraction, of sorts, not just to his body, but to every bit of him. Is the only one whose actually changed here L himself?

No, that can't be right. Something is definitely different in Light. It's not surface, so it's hard to see, because Light's surface is all put on, anyway, same as L's. No, it's something deeper than that, something far beneath the skin and hair and charming smile has shifted, grown younger, grown less powerful. His memory… is he lying, or does he really not remember things?

It's maybe an odd thought process to start upon as soon as he wakes up, but L has already lost an uncertain amount of time, and he'll have to make up for it.

"How long was I out?" he asks, sitting up to scratch at his head. He's hungry. He'll put a call into Watari to have something brought up, because he doesn't much feel like going down at the moment. Most of the team will be leaving or else going to their rooms soon, anyway.

"Not more than a couple of hours," Light says, and he's somehow shifted closer when L wasn't looking, to take L's chin in his hand, presumably examining the bags under his eyes, which are still as pronounced as ever, L's sure. "You should try to sleep some more."

L shrugs him off, looking elsewhere. "No, that's a lot for me. Too much, probably."

He feels strangely like he wants a shower, wants to slop off whatever grinding weight has been pressing on him lately, and just be able to think clearly, but he doesn't make a move for the bathroom. If he showers, Light will have to wait in there with him, and although L's never been uncomfortable with nudity - he sees too much of people's private lives for it to even really register with him anymore - he's not sure he wants to strip down while Light watches on from the other side of a thin curtain. It feels so debilitating, all of a sudden, like all that faked submission is taking its toll, whether or not L had convinced himself that it wouldn't.

It's been so long since - since _then_, but it still seeps in sometimes, and Light is just another thing that's digging into him, crawling under his skin and opening up caves and crevices there. It's not as if he'll back down, not like he'll decide to stop; he'll do whatever the job requires, he always has. He just hadn't thought it would be this difficult.

If Light's bothered by L casually ignoring his attempts at intimacy, he doesn't let it show, looks almost like he had been expecting that exact reaction. Instead, he pulls his laptop over, tipping the screen in L's direction.

"I figured you'd say that," he says, scrolling down he page to bring up some of Kira's crime statistics. "I did some work while you were asleep." Alarm bells should probably be going off in L's head at that - he did work on the computer, Light was alone and unwatched with access to headlines, L's surely slipped up - but he doesn't quite have the energy to be overly panicked. Light's internet history is monitored, and besides, L is almost 99% sure that as he currently is, Light is _not_ doing any of Kira's judgements. "What do you know about the company known as Yotsuba Corp.?"

L's brow crumples in thought as he pulls up rows of data in his head, automatically conjured by the name. He knows a little something about most everything, but not a lot about random, unimportant Japanese companies.

"Not a tremendous amount," he says. "Why?"

And when Light shows him the patterns in the killings, L knows he should be pleased by having a break in the case - but mostly, it just strikes him as unreasonably boring when compared to the personally conducted investigation he has going on with Light.

Also, he really, really does not want to have to bed Yotsuba Corp.

* * *

Everyone is tremendously excited to begin further investigation into the new lead, and L, while more than disposed to enjoy dampening other people's joy when unfounded, can find no fault in their pleasure. Things have been slow for most of the team, of late, himself and Light excluded, but even Light seems pleased by the turn of events. L's sure at least part of that is due to immense satisfaction in having caught onto something before L, nevermind that L had barely been looking. It's not as if Light's ego needs anymore pampering, but L has to admit that it was good work, so he lets him enjoy it, if that's what it takes.

Things are going easier with Light lately - less brutal make-outs and punishing release, more lazing in bed, studying Yotsuba headlines and exchanging data and occasionally getting one another off - at the expense of plenty of files that are necessarily disposed of and reprinted after the fact. Light hasn't mentioned anything else about wanting to fuck him, but L can see it waiting in his eyes sometimes, a subdued sort of hunger than struggles its way under L's skin and makes a home there, and L's not sure quite what to do with that yet.

He supposes they'll have to get it over with at some point. Heh, maybe he'll give Light quite a shock and be the one to do the fucking, just throw him on his back one day and have at it. He's not sure that would further his purposes, but it sure does sound appealing.

"Can you hand me Marketing," Light asks, not looking up from his current reading, and he's referring to the file on the department, of course. L hands it off without verbal confirmation, and the feel of Light's fingers trailing over his when he takes it is smooth and warm and tempting.

And maybe last week that would have resulted in them falling off the bed in their haste to get at each other, but not today. Light has gone gentler in the past few days. Since their fight and subsequent reconciliation, he's taken on not just a kinder approach, but a seemingly completely more favorable opinion of L. He seems far less annoyed by his usual antics, even the ones L employs specifically for the purpose of trying to get under Light's skin. And L knows he could fight this easy peace they've settled into, but he's not altogether sure that he wants to.

Conflict breeds progress, he knows, and they need progress, but isn't that what they're having with Yotsuba? L may still be convinced of Light's guilt, but for the time being, it would be remiss to pursue him as Kira when there is a whole group of people just lined up to be investigated. After they deal with Yotsuba - and L's sure it won't take long, given who he plans to bring in to work the job - then he can deal with Light. For now, they can brush fingers and share quiet, knowing looks, and play chess in the early mornings over steaming mugs of tea.

It's been _so long_ since L has had a worthy chess opponent.

The only thing he can possibly think of that may cut into their easy peace is the two phone calls he'd had Watari make that morning, one to Merrie Kenwood, and one to Thierry Morello.

Wedy and Aiber are fantastically adept at their jobs, no doubt about that. That isn't the problem. What presents a rather daunting threat to the situation he and Light have settled into is, well, all the other things they're good at. L's not as worried about Wedy - no, Wedy, at least, has some decorum. Aiber, on the other hand, is awfully… well, he's _handsy_, is the thing. Which, apart from annoying L terribly most of the time, probably won't be particularly approved of by Light. And it's not as if L can just duck into a room with Aiber for a quick fuck to keep him appeased, not unless he plans on making Light wait on the other side of the door, with the chain slipped through the doorframe.

After the near obsessive research into him, L's sure he knows Light pretty well, and he sincerely doubts he would go along with anything like that.

* * *

**one month later.**

* * *

It's a running battle, it's a fucking whirlwind, fingers scrambling over keys practically faster than the system can keep up as she scrambles through files, deeply encrypted - but a part of breaking and entering in this day and age involves computers, so she's fairly adept at hacking by now. Fairly adept isn't enough for L's system, though, and it's taken her days, dozens of plastic cups full of cheap coffee and twice as many cigarettes to get even this far. She'd call in assistance if she thought she had time, but even living this long is almost a shock to her.

She would have thought the Yagami kid would have wiped the board by now.

She's still alive though, so it doesn't matter why, she just keeps typing, beating in algorithms with every click-click-click of her well-manicured nails. She sucks down some smoke, pours some more coffee, and forty-five minutes later she's in. The hard part over, it doesn't take long for her to track down her name, saved in a file of her own - among those all his contacts, a goldmine of information that nobody wants on the loose, or worse, in the hands of Kira. It's got tons of information on her, from birth to relative present, and invasion of privacy or not - what privacy? - none of it really matters.

What matters is the name.

_Merrie Kenwood_.

She hasn't actually gone by it in years, but she doesn't think that matters to Kira. He's already seen her face, so she leaves the picture, but she expunges every trace of her name from anywhere in the system, replacing it with another alias so that he doesn't know she's been here.

She's prepared to log-out, ready and set to back-track and flush every trace of her brief presence in the system - but another file catches her eye. _Thierry Morello_, it says. It's a name she knows, and when she double-clicks it, it brings up a face she knows, too. Her finger hovers over the mouse - and really, she ought to be gone, gone, gone by now, out of the rent-by-the-hour motel room and catching wind on her bike - but here she is. It's not as if the world would be so terribly worse off if Aiber were to die, but she thinks she'd sort of miss him anyway, and after a second or two of deliberating over it, she goes through and replaces his name, too. Just in case.

After all, Yagami has no reason to like either of them.

She puffs at another cigarette as she logs out, mentally calculating just how many hundreds of drinks Aiber's going to owe her for this.

* * *

**one month earlier.**

* * *

He looks just like how she remembers him - and funny, he'd been the kid at the time, but if anybody's grown up since then, it's her. He's still all baggy clothes and ridiculous hair and a fork lifted halfway to his mouth, stopped in mid-air once he'd noticed her.

"Hello, Wedy," he says flatly, but his eyes are even wider than usual, like, despite putting in the call for her, he's still shocked by her presence.

Wedy sort of wants to smile, but smirks instead, puffing leisurely from her cigarette holder. "Been a long time, boss," she says, breathing out the smoke in a plume that looks almost comical next to the stark white of the room around them. Like film noir has walked onto a police procedural.

There's a boy next to him who looks too young to be part of the NPA and too pretty to be a cop, anyhow. He's the only other one there, too, apart from Watari's silent presence, which had accommodatingly taken her coat at the door. It's too early for the day to have really begun, and the rest of the supposed team that L's been working with for this case hasn't even arrived yet. Which, in hindsight, is probably the reason he'd asked her here at this hour.

"Hmm, yes," L replies, without really committing to the answer, and does nothing more to greet her. That too, is familiar. "Aiber's late," he comments. The boy quirks a look at him then, at the same time as Wedy lifts an eyebrow.

"You brought on Aiber?" she asks, laughing slightly at the sheer ridiculousness of it. "Why would you go and do a thing like that?"

Aiber's good at his job, true, but then so are plenty of conmen. The only thing that really sets him apart, besides the overhanging scent of cologne and malt liquor that follows him around wherever he pokes his sleazy head in, is his history with L. That's one of the things that sets her apart from all the other thieves of her caliber, too. Good old connections. Just like the political sphere and the professional job market, the criminal underworld is run on them.

Though, L tends to _connect _a little more literally that most people in the business. Maybe that's one of the reasons he's the best in the business.

"For the case, of course," L responds, dully, like it had been a stupid question that he's wasting time on by even discussing, before segueing directly into, "This is Light Yagami." He nods only slightly in the direction of the kid next to him, but Wedy is used to working on subtleties, and it's not as if he could have been speaking of anyone else in the near-empty room.

She tips her head to the side, taking another drag as she looks him up and down. Funny name. Cute boy. "Hi, there," she says, as he stands to extend a hand. She's surprised that he's not bowing - that's what one does in Japan, after all - and realizes quickly that it's for her benefit, that he's stepping up to the plate on the chance that she's a clueless Westerner who doesn't know her manners, and she's deliberating over letting him know that she's a _fucking professional_, when she notices it.

It's only when he leans forward, reaching out - and he has a nice, professional handshake, good grip, a child playing all-grown-up - that the light from the overhead fluorescents catches the chain, and the tinny jangling is suddenly obvious in the quiet space the room. There's a chain extended from this Yagami's wrist to L's, keeping them attached like some kind of tame bondage experiment.

"Hello," he says, completely ignoring what could be a very awkward situation, from the look she knows she's giving them. "I'm sorry, I've completely abandoned my manners." He ducks his head politely, smiling apologetically, as if not just on his own behalf, but L's as well. "It's just such a shock to see an unfamiliar face. We don't get many visitors around here."

She brushes off his apology, not bothering to fake a smile back. "Wedy," she says simply, by way of introduction, before turning squarely to L and cocking a thin, blonde eyebrow. "New friend?"

"Light-kun is my chief suspect," L says, expression belying nothing, but admitting as much is as good as outright announcing that they're fucking. L has a habit when it comes to these types of things.

"So that's a yes, then?" she asks, taking the drink that Watari brings her. It's been a long time since she's worked in close quarters with L, but of course Watari remembers how she takes her gin. He's like that. It's maybe too early for alcohol, but it's also too early for chain smoking and smalltalk, and she's doing both of those things now.

"Yes," L says. "That's a yes."

She's not sure, but he thinks she sees him smirking slightly into his cup. Light Yagami, on the other hand - and she's not sure about this - but for just a slim moment, he seems to be glaring at her.

* * *

**tbc.**

* * *

**end notes:** it's probably obvious by now, but I love aiber and wedy in terrible ways. they're actually going to play pretty integral roles in the next few chapters, but i'll elaborate more on that next chapter. I also love misa. like, 80% of everybody hates misa but I really adore her. she's a tragic little thing. she won't be around much for the next few chapters, but she'll definitely have a part to play later. actually, despite this fic being light/l in a big way, there's going to be a lot of other characters involved regardless. what can I say, I love this cast of crazy fuckers.

I do realize that this chapter was phenomenally, mind-numbingly slow, but I do promise things will pick up. there's just a lot to set up.

thank you for reading. all reviews are appreciated and you are all wonderful.


	3. hands

**warnings:** complete and utter disregard for the canon timeline. I am playing fast and loose with the facts here, folks. beyond that, the usual: sex, swearing, excessive smoking, slow slowness. oh, and aiber/l! can't forget that.

**notes:** something you should all know about this fic, if you haven't realized it already, is that it ridiculous and and a complete experiment. I don't know if it will work out or if I'll end up putting my head through a wall before it's all done, and I assume that a lot of the content (aka, much self-involved wish fulfillment) won't work for anybody besides, well, me. that aside, thank you all for reading and especially for reviewing/favoriting/following/etc. it means an inexpressible amount.

things to pay attention to in this chapter: phone calls.

* * *

**chapter three - hands.**

* * *

"_There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired." _

- F. Scott Fitzgerald, _The Great Gatsby._

* * *

She's attractive, in a western woman sort of way, although she looks like she's missed a few decades, walked in straight out of a '60s spy movie or something. _Wedy_. He doubts that's her real name, is sure L wouldn't let anybody come within a fifty-foot radius of his favorite suspect without an alias or three. If L is consistent in any regard - which is becoming less and less likely - it's this one. He's committed to protecting the unsuspecting public. Either that, or he's keeping Light locked up in this place for his own perverse amusement. Which, actually, when Light thinks about it, is the more believable option.

"Light-kun," L says, voice low and even, and the words don't sound half as baiting as Light truly knows them to be. "Is something wrong?"

L had sent Wedy out onto the balcony to finish her cigarette - _"A terrible habit,"_ he'd said, like all those other bullshit niceties he pretends to believe for the sake of not seeming like a completely unethical lunatic - and it's just the two of them again. L's not fidgeting or acting any stranger than the usual, but he looks slightly off. Nervous, almost. Like the other shoe's about to drop, and he's waiting for it rather impatiently.

Light thinks about answering the question, but figures he's better off cutting around all of the usual word games - not that he doesn't like a good game, but he likes information a fair bit better.

"She's not a cop, is she?" He says it like he already knows the answer, watching the door Wedy had slipped out of. Other than some of the bedrooms, the building's got no windows, but it's got plenty of doors. Light's not allowed through most of them, though.

"How do you figure?" L drops sugar cubes in his tea, twirling his roller-chair back and forth with nervous energy.

He's been looking less tired lately. It's not like the bags under his eyes have at all decreased or his skin had really lost its sickly coloring, but there's just been something different the past few days. Last night he'd felt warm, a thing alive and with a pulse, skin pressing close against Light's as they'd set aside their research, distracting themselves with far more engaging pursuits. They haven't fucked yet, which feels ridiculous to Light, but then it hasn't even been all of three weeks - is that pathetic? - so he'll give it a few more days until he just throws L down on the nearest flat surface and has at it.

He doesn't quite look up to it today, though, drooping back into his usual unkempt and underfed appearance with a bonus bout of exhaustion on top, which somehow doesn't serve to make to him any less appealing. Light wonders what L would do if he shoved him down right now, just laid him out on the dull grey carpet and unbuttoned his jeans, stuck a hand down his pants and made him come. He wonders what this Wedy would say if she caught them at it and briefly takes great pleasure in the thought - the only thing a step up from _having L_ would be letting L's little private workforce _know_ that he's being had.

It's just a fantasy, of course, no one can actually find out - other than Watari, he supposes, because Watari sees and knows everything, and it can't be helped at this point - but the taskforce is better off, as they always are, left in the dark.

"Well," Light says, clearing his throat, "her clothes are too nice, for one."

L stabs a strawberry with his fork and shoves the whole thing in his mouth. "But Light-kun himself is quite the sharp dresser, is he not?" he asks around his chewing, and he's playing the idiot-savant facade again, which annoys Light to no end.

Hadn't they just made progress? They've been getting along lately and, despite the fact that L is varying levels of immoral, unethical, and blatantly cruel, Light is starting to grow rather fond of him. They _have_ been making progress.

"I'm not a policeman yet, you know," Light counters, vaguely irritable, but trying not to let it show.

"Ah, yes," L says, "sometimes I forget. You do act so grown-up." He nibbles at the fork, teeth clanging against the metal, and Light grimaces.

And the worst part is, Light _is_ mature for his age. He's lightyears ahead of his peers, and miles more intelligent than most people three times as old as he is, and if Light were less clever - or less used to L - he would take the compliment at face value. But, as it stands, he hears it for biting, flat-toned jab that it is, like L's just poking fun at him, condescending to treat him like an adult, when he's really just a child playing dress up in Daddy's clothes. It cuts deeper than it should and, not for the first time, makes Light wonder what had ever made him think that L was worth trying to get on with?

Probably the way his hips jut, point-sharp and white from the tops of his jeans, or the sounds he makes low in his throat when Light touches him just right. Intelligence aside, those are L's only good qualities.

Light smiles, and it feels more like a polite snarl.

"Does it make you feel better to pretend I'm not still a teenager?" he asks, lowering his voice, and it comes out kindly, like a vague inquiry about work.

And most days - not the last few, but before that - L would take that as the gauntlet being thrown down, and an invitation to one of their typical arguments, scathed and hidden under layers of false civility. He even looks like he's about to snipe something back at Light, a quick and dirty throw-down of wits at breakfast, but just as soon as the sentiment forms on his face, it's gone. Replaced by that familiar exhaustion.

"Not particularly," L says quietly, "no."

He continues to pick at the strawberries.

Any desire Light had had to quarrel deflates with that, and then he just feels like a bit of an ass. Which is completely unfair and not at all reflective of the situation. But he still feels guilty. L is working hard and Light is supposed to be helping him, not picking fights just for an excuse to prove himself. He feels inexplicably younger than he usually does around L and frowns, shifting to have a sip of his coffee. He doesn't like this, doesn't like caring so much about someone else's feelings. Not just in a general, good-will sort of way, but truly. Like L's exhaustion is making Light himself exhausted, like his happiness will be the only thing to cure them both. It's uncomfortable in its closeness; stifling, almost.

Light wants to touch L's sternum, wants to feel the thin bones underneath the skin. Instead he just looks back at the balcony door and says, "Who is she, L?"

L taps the fork against his desk and looks with him. "A specialist," he says.

Light doesn't like that answer, so he appeases his mind with glimpses of L's long fingers, L's limp hair and sharp nose. He looks intelligent more-so than handsome. L's face couldn't look the way it does without a fiercely clever mind behind it; it's something in the brow, something thick-set in the eyes. In the way that he glares and smiles and comes with barely a twitch of his features. He's too intelligent for expressions.

He's about to respond to L's far from adequate answer when Wedy's lip-smack voice precedes her from the balcony and does it for him.

"Well, don't sugarcoat it for him," she says, heels clicking her back into the room as she tucks a pack of expensive cigarettes into her purse.

"I value your input, Wedy," L says, completely falsely. "Now please go away."

Light would smirk at that if it wouldn't make him look terribly petty.

Wedy's neat, blonde eyebrows raise, but she doesn't look shocked by L's unprofessionalism, which is at least a small sign of experience.

"I just wanted to tell you that a car has pulled into the underground garage. A nice one," she says, glossy fingernails playing along the doorframe that she leans against, and L looks at her like he's just heard the punchline of a particularly bad joke and is waiting for her to take it back. "There's a little off-the-clock surveillance for you."

She picks up her glass, swirls the melting ice and puts herself in a chair. The words only mean something to Light as far as they mean something to L, and from they way he winces and gives his roller-chair a particularly violent turn, he's guessing that they mean _something_.

The man, when Watari lets him in, is large and blond and handsome, and looks to Light more or less like Wedy with a barrel chest and a cigar in his mouth. He claps Watari, who bares it gracefully, on the back like a dear old friend and shoots a wide, practiced smile at Wedy. "How's my girl?" he asks, and just smiles wider at her response - "I wouldn't know," - and that appears to be enough of a greeting for them.

He turns to L, moving through the room like a refined bulldozer, but L cuts him off before he can say a word.

"Light," he says, without looking at anybody in particular, Light included, "this is Aiber. Aiber, this is Light Yagami."

Aiber's eyebrows drift up toward his hairline as his eyes catch on the chain, and real amusement sparks on his face before it locks itself back up behind an affected grin.

"A pleasure."

His handshake is firm and Light instantly dislikes him. It's the bright eyes, the vague scent of alcohol, the way he motions with his cigar when he speaks. He's not even smoking the cigar. It's not even lit. His cologne is thick and his suit is flashy and he's maybe the campiest thing Light has ever seen in person. And he keeps _looking_ at L, in a way that no one should ever look at L, least of all in a professional setting while he's physically chained to another person.

Light puts on his best smile and greets him cordially. He feels L stiffen next to him, probably because L knows this voice, knows this smile. He knows all the fakest parts of Light, just like he seems to be learning the real ones.

"And what do you do for L, Yagami?" Aiber asks, like he already knows the answer, like there's innuendo wrapped up in there somewhere, and Light's brain is quickly dissecting it, running through the gestures and words and calculated, easy smile.

He sits back down in the chair next to L's, arms crossing casually across his chest, and says, "The same thing you used to, I'd assume," with a lifted brow and a clever twitch to his smirk.

It's plainly obvious - if Light takes a proper stock of the situation, the interactions, the _look_ in Aiber's eye - that L has slept with him. Probably with Wedy, too, from the way she seems to take the comment with little more than a demure sip of her gin.

Aiber, on the other hand, laughs uproariously. It's an obnoxious laugh, too loud for the situation, and Light hopes L gets bored of this comedy routine soon and sends the idiot packing. He's no idea what he could possibly do for the case, and doesn't want to find out what he could do for L. Light wants out of here, back to bed, back to the sheets and L's boney knees digging into his side and his warm, uneven breath ghosting against his face.

"Come now," Aiber says, with a heavy-handed smirk, "you're not a conman, too, are you?"

Wedy clinks the ice around in her glass. "I do believe the boy was talking about the other _thing_, Aiber," she says.

"Oh?" His face is almost comical when he flicks his eyes over to her, then back to leer at Light and L. "Surely that, of all things, goes without saying?"

"But you love to talk about it, anyway," Wedy says, checking her designer watch, evidently waiting for something. It doesn't take Light long to realize what.

L's teacup hits the desk with a heavy, conversation-stopping clang, his eyes going blank. There's no anger, no simmering displeasure like when Light says something vaguely disparaging about his investigatory techniques - such as they are - and L gets moody, words biting and carelessly cruel. He's just cold.

"Aiber, Wedy," he says, voice low but commanding, enunciating each of their names thoroughly. "_Stop it_." He doesn't look at either of them in particular, eyes focusing on some far off, hazy point in the back of the room that only he can see, and Light knows the tactic well. "You're here for the Kira case. You will talk about the Kira case, and you will talk about nothing else while under this roof. Outside of this building, you are free to talk about anything _but_ the Kira case. Is that clear?"

He does look at the both of them then, meeting Aiber's smiling eyes and Wedy's sober sniff and prompting a nod from each of them. It's evident that they've heard this spiel before and don't think all that much of it.

"Compromise my security," L continues, "or any part of my investigation, and you will find yourselves both out of a job, and back in a cell." Watari appears then, out of nowhere, with some kind of enormous, gut-rotting desert and L's eyes switch straight over to that. "Now," he says, "who wants parfait?"

Predictably, no one wants parfait.

Less predictably, and not necessarily something Light would admit outright, listening to L tell the two of them off in that authoritative, no-nonsense tone has turned him on a bit. He wonders if L would mind terribly being dragged off for another "bathroom break," just a quick interlude to the morning, and then back to business. But then his mind backtracks over what L had actually said, and another thing clicks into place.

"You're criminals," he says.

Light can feel his jaw locking, his skin itching, and he doesn't know whether he should be shocked or not that L has brought this disreputable element into the investigation. Probably not. Nothing L does should ever surprise him, and if it ever does, Light should know that he's the one who's not playing right, because L isn't above - or below - anything. Sex with a suspect? Apparently that's tame for him, and his usual speed is more along the lines of _sex with everyone_.

Light wants to curl his lip at Aiber and Wedy, but resolves to be the bigger person about this, for the sake of the case if nothing else. L, on the other hand, appears to have no such moral stipulations.

"Feeling murderous?" he asks Light, immediately switching gears to lean in almost humorously close.

"Depends if you keep talking," Light shoots back, pulling out his long-suffering sigh and put-upon expression.

L's mouth quirks almost imperceptibly. His breath is cool from the parfait and he's chewing on a cherry stem and Light still can't decide whether it will be worth it to pin him down and fuck him on one of the headquarters desks. They have too many desks, Light thinks, too much space. It's wasteful and extravagant, another of L's laundry list of sins, and he can think of no better purpose better suited than the two of them, close and warm, with L's breath going weak, body pliant.

God, Light thinks about this way too much. It would be unhealthy if he hadn't already resolutely decided that it's definitely not. Light is an extremely healthy young man, and this kind of thing is normal for his age group. Sometimes Light will think of himself as more of an age group than he does as a human being, but it's been a long time since then. L's given him more of an identity than he's ever had before, just by standing by and accusing him constantly of crimes, by kissing him the way he does. Light can't decide whether he ought to thank him or hate him for it.

Aiber shoots a look at them and his smile, if possible, grows by a couple of watts. "_You're_ supposed to be Kira?"

Light can hear the condescension in the question. _You?_ _A child, a boy, a student?_ Light doesn't know why, but it instills him with a sudden feeling of harsh, unquenchable pride. _Yes, _a part of him thinks, _me._ After the thought passes through, he pauses, but then it's gone, and all he's left with is to reassure himself that the only gratification he'd gotten from the sentiment was the fact that L deems him competent enough to suspect him of a crime of such magnitude. He's not sure he's ever thought of it like that before, but there it is. The other investigators had doubted that a student could be responsible for Kira's crimes - and he doesn't know how he knows that, assumes his father must have mentioned it at some point - but L hadn't. L never would.

It's preposterous, of course. Even if Light is intellectually capable of being Kira, he's not morally so, and that's where L has it wrong. L's so close to being right, but he's just so, so wrong.

Light returns Aiber's condescending look with a polite tilt of his head.

"'_Supposed_ _to_' being the key phrase," he says, flat-out ignoring any insult Aiber might have intended, "and only in the world according to L."

"And what a beautiful world to live in," Aiber shoots back.

Light continues to disapprove of him with vehemence.

"Funny," Wedy says, and she's not looking at either of them, but dodging her glance lazily between her glass, her fingernails, and L, "but if you work with him long enough, you get to realize that the reputation isn't just talk. He really is always right." Her lipstick smacks as she speaks and Light's starting to vaguely hate her, too. "About these things, at least."

Everyone knows that, though. L is right about everything, L knows all, L is great and infallible. Light is the only one who knows better.

Maybe Wedy really hasn't fucked him, because if she has, she would have seen him as he truly is, small and imprecise and weak, riddled with ruinous humanity. Or maybe, just possibly, Light is the only one allowed that glimpse, the only one deemed important enough to get that close. Yes, that feels correct, that's surely the only explanation. Sex is sex, and people all over the world are having it, but Light is different, and so is L. They don't drag each other low with those grasping hands, they hold tight and they grip hard and they bite deep, and they haven't even _fucked_ yet. They've barely gotten started, and already they're so above it. They're just so above everything.

Obviously, though, he can't say that to Wedy, so he gives her an expression of politeness and acute embarrassment, and says, "Then you see how that makes my position quite awkward."

Aiber snorts, and it's good-humored enough for Light not to trust it.

"I'll bet."

The innuendo really is getting crass, and Light barely restrains an eye-roll. L does it for him, like they're locked into the same thought process, scoffing as he pours himself another cup of tea.

"I've missed your brand of humor, Aiber," he says.

"Really?" Aiber's eyes light up in a leer.

L starts dropping in sugar cubes, and when they reach double-digits, Light stops counting. "No," he returns briskly. He tastes his tea, and then adds a few more. Wedy's glass clinks through the wide office, and they can hear Matsuda talking excitedly to someone in the outside hall, voice getting ever closer.

* * *

"They're very charming," is the first thing Light says when they're alone, back in the bedroom while everyone else is having lunch.

It's obvious to L who he's talking about. He's had the same fake smile glued to his face since this morning, and it's halfway between hilarious and sickening the way everyone so far has bought it.

"You hate them," L says immediately, without turning around. He doesn't need to look at him to know the expression has dropped off of Light's face, especially when he collapses into one of the chairs like the melodramatic farce that he is and huffs a laugh, like it's a joke between the two of them.

"Tell me you don't," he shoots back, and he has as much of a point as he doesn't, because once upon a long time ago - when L was just as young as Light, though not nearly so immature - he _had_ hated Aiber and Wedy.

They'd been unprofessional, they'd laughed at his demands for respect, at his interrogations, at the thought that this _boy_ was the great and powerful L. They'd both had eager hands when he'd dragged them into bed, though, and at the time, that had arguably been the worst part. Wedy and her manicured nails and her gin and the way she liked to show off her cynicism like a badge of honor. Aiber with his rentboys and his loud laughter and warm palms. _"That's a boy,"_ he'd said, the first time L had kissed him. Wedy had just smirked and told him he was too young for her, and then preceded to fuck him, anyway.

He shrugs, though, because he's not keen to tell any of that to Light, and wouldn't know how to explain the eventual affinity he'd gained for each of them, even if he did.

"They have their uses," is all he says, not intending the statement to be suggestive, but allowing for it anyway. Light will come to his own conclusions, no matter what's said.

Light snorts. "I'm sure they do."

There's a pause, and then the inevitable comes.

"What is this," Light asks, "a thing with you?" He stands up, seemingly bored of his dramatic collapse and now committed to rounding on L. "Did you investigate them? Were they your cases, your _suspects_?" He says the word like an accusation, even though Light is the one under suspicion. But then, he's always had the ability to make it feel like the other way around.

Sometimes, in the dead, long night while Light sleeps and L stares at the ceiling, he can't remember if he had chained himself to Light or if it was the other way around. He feels locked up, like there's a leash around him. Like Light had slipped in when he wasn't looking and L's not sure how to get him out.

He stiffens when Light's fingers meet his back, trailing up the arch of his spine with a cruel sort of delicacy. L doesn't answer any of his questions. Light's a smart boy. He doesn't need him to.

"What is wrong with you?" he asks, in that quiet tone that he like so much. That sympathetic, lover-boy voice that goes up an octave. It shouldn't be so easy, but it is, to tell when Light is lying. "I'm not just being insulting, I'm actually asking. Has that been the idea from the start, to fuck the truth out of me?"

L stands there, Light's hand splayed across his back, and doesn't know what to say to that. Sex has been an integral part of his investigatory tactics for a long time. He was 17 the first time he dragged a suspect into bed. He's still not sure whether Watari had watched on the security cameras or not, but he'd known after the fact. He'd just nodded his usual approving nod and told L that he was doing good work. Anything for justice.

"I suppose I'm meant to be above that sort of thing, aren't I?" he asks the crisp white expanse of the bed. The sheets have been made, because Light is anal about these sorts of things.

He's expecting it, but the warm press of lips on the back of his neck still makes him twitch with the shock of the touch.

They've been getting closer by the day, and it's come to a point that if they're not truly friends, they might as well let themselves believe they are. Friendship has nothing to do with the way Light's touching him - running his clever hands down L's sides, along his ribs; mouth curving up to press against his ear, the underside of his jaw - but L thinks of it anyway. He thinks of the several hours of sleep he's gotten this week, and waking up to Light looking at him in a way Light doesn't look at anyone.

Light is diluted, though, at least currently. He's not himself. The thought is an ache as much as it is a relief. Soon this will all go away.

"Come on, then," Light whispers in his ear, "I might as well get my money's worth." It might be romantic if it weren't so horribly crass.

"This isn't very upstanding of you, Light-kun," L says, leaning back into the touch.

They touch one another too much and it's ridiculous. L hates being touched - at least in theory - but his hips press back as Light's press forward, and he's just decided to go ahead with this, to risk the possibilities of Aiber's suggestive comments and Wedy's raised eyebrows - for the sake of the investigation, of course - when Light tugs him around by the shoulders, spinning him so that they can kiss properly.

It's a gutting, gasping press, like they've lost something inside one another and are set on using their tongues to get it out - which is a comparison as ill-favored as it is true. They really have no good reason, beyond simple hormones, to be this ravenous, but after hazy days and quiet comfort, that sizzle and burn seems essential. Maybe Wedy and Aiber were a necessary wake-up call, a taste of the realities that L has been ignoring in favor of Light's hands and eyelashes and thighs, and the rest of him, too. L tells himself that it's all part of the plan, but as good of a liar as he is, he's not good enough to fool himself.

Light's mouth tastes like unsweetened tea and his fingers dig into L's scalp as they kiss and it's all quite terrible, really.

"They don't know you," he says against L's lips. "They don't know a thing about you."

It's probably jealousy, but it doesn't sound like it. Light's desperation, the sort he's showing now, is born out of his own floundering reality more than it is outside forces. L should know, he works hard enough trying to loosen the infrastructure of Light's mind. He wonders if that's Kira creeping in the back door, or if Kira's been at the helm all along.

"The thing is, Light-kun," he shoots back, tugging himself out of Light's grip, "neither do you."

"Tell me something, then," Light demands. As if it's owed to him. As if all of L's past and history, his innermost thoughts, should be up for grabs by default.

"There isn't really anything to tell," L says, turning away.

Light scoffs, wiping at his lips. "You're lying. You're always lying."

"Just one more way in which we're devastatingly similar," L says. He slumps into the chair that Light had vacated and the chain is tugged taut between them. "It's terrible, really. We might be good together, if you hadn't killed thousands of people. But then, if you were just the decent, upstanding young man that you pretend to be, we never would have met." He tilts his head to the side, lolling there like none of it means a thing.

Light pinches the bridge of his nose, fighting off the aggravation.

"Stop it. Let's not have this argument again, okay? I just - "

"Want sex?" L asks, but it's not really a question, and not really the answer, either. It goes without saying. Light wants to fuck him and L ought to fuck him, because that's how he does his best investigations, but there's a sort of invented roadblock between where they are now and where sex will put them.

L never goes into investigations intending to fuck his suspects, but it's 60/40 in favor of it ending up that way anyway, and he's learned to anticipate his own on-the-fly strategies. It becomes less about facts and data and crime scenes and more about bodies and skin and quiet words. The difference here is that most of his suspects don't _know_ that they're his suspects, don't know that he's L, and they don't spend half as much time with him as Light has. Kira is a different case, a different animal altogether, and leaving him alone for a moment is not an option.

Wedy and Aiber really _don't_ know him as well as Light does, which only really bothers him in so far as it would puff up Light's ego tremendously if he were to find out, and he really doesn't need any more of that.

L is used to giving things away to his cases. _We all make sacrifices for justice_, Watari has said to him once when he was a child, and even at that age he'd taken it to heart. He thinks there must have been more of him, once upon a time, but the hands and the mouths have picked him apart, every case taking its own tiny piece, and he'd let them be taken. For _justice_. And because, at the time, he hadn't mattered to himself at all in the grand scheme.

Looking back on it, he just feels diminished, like he'd want the lost parts back if could figure out what to do with them.

"Yes," Light says. Yes, he wants sex. He is a teenage boy and he is a construction of a person, but a person nonetheless, and his hormones make far more sense to him than L's half-assed identity crisis.

"Not now, Light," L says.

Maybe he'll keep saying that until he catches Light out. More likely, he won't be able to catch him without the sex, without that one deep look inside.

Light rolls his eyes, looks like he'd expected as much, but doesn't push the issue. They play Go instead, and have lunch, and L tells him about a case in Hong Kong where a woman killed eleven different men with the same pair of high-heeled shoes, and Light listens to him, riveted.

* * *

In the small, minimalist kitchen, on the breakfast table, with L's hands pinned above his head and Light spread out on top of him, pressing down with a gentle, burning friction as he thrusts shallowly. L's hips writhe beneath him, shoving up helplessly, and Light takes pity and fucks him harder.

In the shower, both of them cramped together in the narrow space - and why do they still bathe separately; it's ridiculous, if Light truly thinks about it - slick with soap and sliding wet against water-warm skin, L gasping and pulling at his hair, desperate for it.

In the main room, in the dead of night, locked together on the floor, sweat cooling between them from the air-conditioning vents low on the wall beside them, the hum of the monitors playing a steady, lulling background noise, almost a sort of mood music - because what's more _L_ than computers and machines, inhumanity so human in its frailty - and Light would pin him, and Light would fuck him, and it would be glorious, the end to all problems and the road to all solutions, and L's voice would break and his long, white fingers would curl into Light's shoulders and -

The stack of files lands dully on the desk in front of him, and Light can barely restrain himself from the full-on glare he'd like to level at Mogi. Next to him, L smirks into his tea, and Light has a place to reroute his annoyance.

He narrows his eyes as he smiles politely, the sneer evident as nothing more than a ghost of sentiment that he's sure L can see.

L doesn't say as much, of course, just continues to suck on today's obscenity and asks, "Distracted, Light-kun?"

"Just thinking about the case, Ryuzaki," he says, so pleasant it's like razor burn, tight with an uncomfortable heat that disguises itself so easily under the cordial tilt of his head.

If the game had been on pause before, the arrival of Aiber and Wedy had shifted everything into an intensive, competitive gear, and it's been all they can do for the past few weeks to keep their hands off of each other, to keep their mouths closed against the clever, barbed things they want to say.

It's unhealthy, perhaps, and not something Light would dream of participating in without provocation, but it still makes something flush-warm shift low in his stomach, makes everything quick and fanciful, almost like he really is Kira, like he really is L's sworn enemy. It's the same as the fantasies he indulges during their work hours - filthy, but acceptable in their obscenity because he clearly recognizes them as such. There's a difference between thinking, _what if?_ and actually killing thousands of people, same as there is between thinking, constantly and with commendable variety, about fucking L, and actually doing so.

They still haven't gotten down to it, although it's not all due to L's ornery pretenses at modesty, so much as their two newest house guests. Apparently, the only things Aiber likes more than pretending to smoke his cigar and talking about his exploits as a conman are making very thinly-veiled sexual innuendos in front of the task force and playing with L's hair. It's extremely unsettling. They'll be at the computer and L will be talking and Aiber will just lean over his shoulder, speaking very close to his ear and twining his fingers into the short strands at the base of his neck, like petting a dog or something.

And L, even though it's obvious that he notices, never once stops him, or makes any comment to the effect of, _"Get the fuck off of me, you impudent log,"_ as Light thinks he really should.

"Forgive me for saying so," L says, eyeing him in a way that might be sly if L would commit to actually making an expression, "but, considering that you _are_ the case, that seems uncharacteristically self-absorbed."

And when he says, _"uncharacteristically,"_ it's obvious from the cadence of his voice that what he means is the exact opposite. Then he licks some frosting from his fingers, and it's vile. So vile that Light wants nothing more for everyone else on planet Earth to disappear so that no one else ever has to see how vile L can be.

Also, so that they can finally fuck in peace.

"That man is a kleptomaniac," Aiber says, appearing from somewhere in a puff of bitter smoke to stand behind L and Light, hands crossed casually across his chest as he stares up at the screen. "And that one has had sex with his cousin," he adds, nodding to a different Yotsuba member.

He's been doing this sort of thing for most of the past week, poking his shiny, blond head in just long enough to deliver some useless bit of information that they either already know or don't care about, before ducking out again to go lounge somewhere and drink bourbon. Light doesn't understand why L doesn't fire him immediately, but he hasn't said a thing, because that's not the way the game's played.

So, as much as he wants to call bullshit at this latest declaration - because, _honestly_ - he turns his smile from L, letting it go slightly more forced, and says, "And how did you come to those very relevant conclusions, Aiber-san?" in the least combative voice he can manage.

The side of Aiber's mouth jerks up, and he uncrosses his arms, laying his large palms on the desk beside Light and leaning over to say, "I'm a conman," like it ought to explain everything. Light raises an eyebrow expectantly, and Aiber does something that looks suspiciously like an eye-roll. "I read people well," he elaborates, straightening up. "It's part of the job."

Light's expression is exceedingly pleasant when he says, "I was under the impression the job of a conman was to make things up. To lie. About everything." He shrugs, unconcernedly, all dimples and eyelashes and everything that everyone always admires about him, coiled in a taunt just clever enough to avoid being obvious in its goading. "When you think about it," he tells Aiber, idly, "it's quite a simple profession, really."

"Only if lying comes easy to you," L says, leaning his unkempt head over into Light's very personal space, muffling the words around his spoon, and Light might even enjoy the jab - in some twisted way that he's sure he'd learned from L - but for the way it obstructs the pleasure he knows he would have gotten in watching Aiber flounder to come up with a suitable reply.

Light gives a quiet laugh.

"I'm sure I don't know anyone like that," he says, eyeing L, awful hypocrite that he is.

L pulls the spoon from his lips with a wet pop and Light thinks of his hands in L's hair, of the sharp jut of his chin digging into Light's thigh.

"Light-kun," he says, eyes wide and dumb and almost charming, in an inscrutable, foul sort of way, "I do believe you're lying to me."

"Do you?" Light simpers back.

They're really quite lovely sometimes. If L wasn't a near-borderline personality obsessed with arresting him, Light might suggest they do something drastic, like live happily ever after.

"Cute," Aiber says, but he looks annoyed, and Light feels smug for more than a few reasons.

"Yes, Light is very charming," L mumbles. "You two should start a club."

Light doesn't much like what L's implying there, but Aiber just hitches an eyebrow before wandering off. Light, following L's lead, glances back to the screen. The Yotsuba group have moved on from the Kira business, and are currently arguing about stocks, which L doesn't seem impressed by in the least. Light likes stocks, and even he finds it fairly dull. Aizawa is slumped a few seats away, looking as if he's putting serious consideration into hanging himself with his tie. Light only hopes he has the good sense to do it after he's filed today's research report.

Light glances at the smaller security screens, watching Aiber move from the hallway into his private rooms and not sure whether to spend a few minutes feeling ardently superior or just go back to work. L is watching him watch, of course, and the knowledge tingles something sharp and fluttery under his skin.

"You despise him," L says, offhandedly, head tilted like when he's play-acting.

"Of course not," Light says, by default, but hopes it's obvious from his tone of voice that what he really means is, _yes, I do_. "But at least Wedy actually does her job," he adds.

And she doesn't hang around half as much, a fact that gains her a considerable amount of favor with Light. As a rule, the less he has to see of people, the more he likes them.

"Aiber will do his, when he's needed," L says, but he's distant. Light hates whatever he's thinking about then for no reason other than that he doesn't know what it is.

"Can't you keep him somewhere else until then?" he asks, making it sound like more of a joke than it is. "A cell, maybe? Or a kennel."

"Manners, Light-kun," L says, berating him so fondly that Light thinks he actual sees the edge of a smile in his eyes.

And, this isn't like their old games, not really. They're still playing, but not very determinedly, and not necessarily against one another. If anything, it's a tease, flirting with disaster, but not actually looking for it. Light thinks that it must be, in part, because of Matsuda. Matsuda who, as usual, blundered things so effectively that he'd actually had to fake his own death. Aiber had made himself useful for once by lying around on the ground, Misa had actually conjured up some legitimate acting skills to put to use, and by some confluence of events that had involved L and Light in paramedic uniforms - and subsequent blow jobs, still in uniform, after the fact - everyone had managed to stay alive and the taskforce had ended up with a whole network of Wedy's surveillance cameras in the Yotsuba meeting room.

Even though Light's sure L still hasn't dropped his suspicions, or even set them aside, the new leads have been keeping them busy enough not to get into spats over Light's likelihood of being Kira, resulting in something like a marginally competitive but mutually respectful truce between them. It would be virtually ideal if Aiber weren't skulking around in the picture.

So, maybe last week he would have said something politely distant in response to L's baiting, setting it aside, being the bigger person, but it's been all fun and games between them lately, so he just hitches the side of his mouth and says, "Bite me, L," in a low, clever tone that he means to shoot up L's spine and under the seams of his clothes, the way words sometimes do with them.

"Ryuzaki," L corrects, as usual, but it's not particularly reproving, and if his mouth would curve up just a little and his eyes would light a little brighter, he could almost be grinning

"Ryuzaki," Light repeats. He wants to kiss him. The task force is all around them and Light's father is across the room, brow stern as he shuffles through files, and he'll never do it, not really, but he wants to kiss him.

"Ryuzaki." Watari's voice crackles civilly over the intercom. "There's a call on your secondary line."

L's brow, or what Light can see of it through the thick tangle of his hair, creases slightly, and he looks vaguely annoyed.

"Not now, Watari," he answers back into the microphone. All of the calls regarding the Kira case go to the primary line, so Light assumes, as L probably does, that it's not particularly important. Maybe L should answer, anyway, maybe they both have things to be doing, but there's a lightness between them just then, something foreign and new and bright, and it feels like enough to just sit there, shooting clever sideways glances at each other as another day of slow progress passes them by.

* * *

Light's in the shower when Aiber comes in. He's wearing a salmon pink suit and it should look terrible, but it doesn't. In the same way that all of Aiber's awful lines and over-the-top acting should never work on anyone, but he still manages to con them out of billions without lifting much more than a finger. It's something in the eyes, in the genuine jag of his smile. L had spent months trying to pin-point it down exactly, back when Aiber had still been his case, and had never really come out one hundred percent certain. It hadn't mattered, after the fact. L had solved the case and Aiber had been behind his bars, a weapon ripe for further use.

L glances up from where he's hunched on the counter, not letting a thing show on his face. He doesn't need to ask why Aiber's here, never has, so he just quirks his eyebrows and says, "Lost?"

Aiber smirks his usual smirk, and L remembers why he had been one of the easier cases. He's clever, but easy to engage with and L had dived right in as soon as he'd seen him, had known he was behind it in that way he often does, and hadn't hesitated to drag him to justice by the roots of his blond hair. Aiber had never seemed to hold that against him, and doesn't now.

His fingers are pleasantly warm when they slide along L's jaw, shutting his laptop and pushing it aside, and he leans in close to press his stubbled cheek to L's smooth one, breath whispering soft against his lips before they push forward to meet L's. He tastes sharply of alcohol and it makes L sick with familiar disgust, because it's always been disgusting with Aiber. He's got terrible ways of twisting things up so it always feels sleazier and funnier and dirtier with him than it maybe really is. The hand that slide's down L's chest to cup him roughly through his jeans falls neatly in line with all of L's memories, of all the other times they've done this, and it hurts quietly like nostalgic things do.

L's been expecting this from the start, and isn't overly interested in fighting it, in shoving him back and insisting that he's not interested, because in all honesty, he'd probably still rather fuck Aiber than Light. The devil you know, and all that.

He kisses back only tentatively, but Aiber doesn't need it to be anything more, grabbing his face with one hand and groping him roughly with the other. It still feels safer than Light's soft hands and kind smile ever have, because that smile isn't really kind, it's just playing kind, and Aiber may be a professional liar, but it's just his job. He doesn't take it home with him, doesn't sleep with false things ready on his tongue. He drags L so close he thinks he might fall off the counter, but Light is still showering, still hasn't noticed a thing, and maybe L _can_ fall and that will be okay.

Aiber shoves him back against the mirror, but not hard, not looking to bruise, just putting enough room between them to speak.

He nods at the handcuff around L's wrist. "Lose the kid," he says.

He's so warm and he smells cheap, is cheap, and L is almost amused to remember how terrified he'd been of him once. He shakes his head and says, "You've really got to stop being in love with me, Aiber."

Aiber laughs, expectedly. He laughs at everything. "Don't be so egotistical," he says. "It's unattractive." He steps back a little then, taking his hand off of L's face, but not letting up on his crotch. His eyes are so bright. L had almost forgotten. "You look like shit, actually."

"You're shocked?" L asks. Maybe he should be uncomfortable, but he isn't. Aiber's liquor breath is familiar, same as his grabby hands and overbearing laugh and the way he tells stories, speaking very slowly and with a quiet smile. He takes his coffee with two sugars and he doesn't like tea. He has terrible taste in music.

"Last time I saw you, you looked better," Aiber says, shrugging.

"That was Coil."

"Coil is you."

"Semantics."

The original Eraldo Coil had actually been very handsome. L hadn't fucked him, but he had sucked off Denueve - who had been older and with much worse hair - during the detective wars, and had nearly choked on his cock at the time, but it had helped him get the code, so it had been worth it.

When L had actually worked Aiber's case, he'd done so as L, but subsequently it had been much more usual for him to call in Aiber's particular brand of expertise for Coil's cases.

"It was so fucking hot down in Argentina," Aiber breathes against his neck, fingers tapping an off-tempo beat onto his thigh, "that you didn't wear your shirt half the time, and you were always sucking down one of those girly fruit drinks." He tongues L's ear. "You looked good."

Argentina had been a particularly difficult case. A string of political murders with heavy religious symbolism and a lot of arterial spray. L had bought a villa and lived in it for three months with no more furniture than a few futons. He had stuck case photos all over the walls and Watari had had to repaint before they moved out to get rid of his scrawling sharpie notes on every available surface. He'd sent Aiber out to schmooze politicians, but he'd always shown up at the villa on his off hours, drinking heavily and letting L bounce his unending, contradicting streams of thought off of him, and when the thoughts had started coming too quickly for his mouth, and his hands had shaken from too much caffeine, Aiber had lain him down on one of the futons and fucked him calm and quiet again.

That had been two years ago, and then the case had wrapped up and they hadn't spoken to each other again until L had had Watari call him in two weeks ago.

That's how it is with him, usually. L has sex the way other people go bowling, casually and only when he can think of nothing else to do, and then he'll let months or years pass in-between because it fits nowhere into his daily life. It's been pointed out to him - by several people and in many different and creative ways - that this is in no way healthy, that fucking just to pull back the skin and see the gooey insides is really not a good reason to fuck. But L does not do things because they are good or kind or reasonable, he does them because _this is what he does_.

He's justice, maybe. Or maybe not. It doesn't matter terribly either way.

He looks at Light's pretty, pretty outline through the shower curtain, assumes he can't hear them because he'd be out here already if he could, dripping wet and childishly possessive, because even though he thinks that he understands L, he doesn't. Doesn't even have enough information to form a proper hypothesis, even with that sparkling mind of his.

He looks back to Aiber, nodding his head towards the shower. "I'm not going to fuck you," he says, lowly. "I have to fuck him."

"You can't do both?" Aiber asks with a smirk, but of course he knows the answer.

The thing about Aiber is that he actually knows a lot about L, factually, but he's not half as clever as Light, and not a quarter so much as L, and he doesn't know what to properly do with the information. L likes Aiber - sometimes, but not all of the time - because he's smart enough to smile smug, like he knows things, but not smart enough to actually know anything.

"I don't have time for you, Aiber," he says, but he doesn't push him away.

Aiber rolls his eyes, huffing long-sufferingly and letting his hand curve lazily around L's hip. "You're no fun anymore," he says. "Wedy's the same. She nearly broke my wrist yesterday."

"You shouldn't have grabbed her there," L says, and if he were the type to smile, he might do it now.

There's something like boyish nostalgia for him mixed in with Aiber and Wedy, and even watching her twist his arm around his back after he'd groped her had inspired a certain amount of fondness in L. He feels for them what the average person might feel for the neighborhood children they'd grown up with, maybe because the children he'd actually grown up with had been brutally psychopathic from their infancy.

"She liked it," Aiber says, waving it off, and maybe it's true. Wedy only breaks bones if she's really fond of you. Or if someone - usually L - is paying her to.

Aiber's hand runs up along his hip, coasting up the sharp indentation right below his ribs. There's a pressure point somewhere there and if Aiber knew how he could jab his thumb and cause L an unimaginable, gut-wrenching pain in in his lower abdomen. He's felt it before, more than a few times. From his youth he'd been trained to withstand almost any form of torture, from the physical to the psychological and all intermediate practices, and if Aiber dug his thumb in now at _just_ the right angle it would hurt like hell, but L's relatively certain he could suffer it without making a single sound of distress. The thought coasts somewhere in him, and even though he's in virtually no danger, it's something of a comfort.

Aiber's palms are just sloping up the concave of his back when the shower curtain slides aside.

Light is standing there, Light is naked, and Light does not look pleased. Light rarely looks pleased, of course, unless he's just come or sometimes when he's perceived some sort of victory over L. He smiles constantly, a pleasant drudge of the face, but L's quite certain he's rarely, if ever, seen him look _happy_.

"Am I interrupting something?" he asks, in that cool, clipped voice that he usually reserves for L alone. His eyes are locked on Aiber's hand up L's shirt, nostrils flared and looking vaguely disgusted. L rather hopes he is.

"Hey," Aiber smarms, eyeing Light up and down, because he is naked and dripping and beautiful. "Looking sharp, Kira."

Light's face twists with tight politeness as he pulls a towel off the rack to wipe himself down, purposefully letting the material fall haphazardly, covering nothing up. It's classic posturing, displaying his lack of bodily shame like a badge of honor. L thinks it's almost cute in its infantilism.

"If you don't mind," Light says, wrapping the towel around his waist, "I'd rather you didn't call me that." There's no denial, no sharp defenses, as if he feels no need to dignify Aiber's words by getting offended.

Water droplets fall from his hair and skate down his chest, and L watches them. Light is so good-looking that sometimes he doesn't seem real. Sometimes, in the early days - before they had truly met and L was still working the case off of surveillance and suspect profiles - he'd been sure that he wasn't. That Light Yagami was a person he'd created in his head, because he'd wanted a perfect criminal.

It seems very silly and distant now. Light is not perfect, and not even just because of the mass murder. He is childish and moody and self-absorbed, everything that L is, but in a neat suit and pretty skin. He is far from perfect. He is ugly, in his way.

"I need to get dressed," he says, walking past them without glancing at Aiber, and pulling L after him like a dog on a leash. "Come on, L."

L goes, giving Aiber a shrug, because he'd more or less signed up to be this dog. He is Light's right now, in the same way that he had been Aiber's or Wedy's or the woman in Hong Kong's and the man in Tulsa's. It's just until the job is done, until case his closed, and then he will go back to being his own, alone and quiet and safe again, if only for a little while.

* * *

Light wants to hit him, wants to pin him to something solid and tear him apart and make him hurt and cower and beg, because _Aiber is not allowed to touch him that way_. It seems immoral, like there should be a law somewhere forbidding anyone from putting their hand up L's shirt, unless they pass a set of standardized tests in order to measure their qualifications. Maybe then, if they're brilliant, if they're good enough the way that Light is better than enough, maybe then they can be near him. But only then, and they'd have to pay taxes for it, too.

It's unreasonable, he knows it's unreasonable, he's not completely out of his mind, after all. A day ago, or an hour even, he would have looked down on himself for feeling this way.

As soon as Aiber and Wedy arrived and made their history with L obvious, Light had absorbed the knowledge that L had fucked them - that L goes around fucking _everyone_ - the way he'd take any new information. It's just a fact, a personality quirk, further evidence of L's striking lack of morality, and that had been the end of it, because Light isn't petty enough for jealousy. Light has never been jealous of anyone in his life and he sees no reason why he should be, with the way he looks, the way he is, the way that everyone treats him the way you would treat some supernatural being who's come down from heaven to delight you with its presence.

L has never looked at him like that and Light has a very graphic fantasy of strangling him with one of his dress shirts as he slams the door of the closet shut behind them. L, unfazed, slumps against a rack of blazers.

"You're dripping on the slacks, Light-kun," he says, finger plucking at his lip, eyes wide and dull.

Light hates him so much right then it burns through him like a fever and he gets a sickening satisfaction from yanking the chain forward to make L stumble into him.

Light is still completely naked and L is fully clothed, but that doesn't really seem like an issue at this point. The towel drops from his waist and the water still clinging to his hair lands in thick droplets between them, soaking tiny spots into L's shirt, and it physically hurts when he kisses him, but Light doesn't care.

"You're disgusting," he says into L's hair, breath already ragged and cock hardening and pressed into the crotch of L's jeans. He speaks against a patch of skin between L's ear and jaw, lips teasing over it with reckless severity. His palm slides down L's back with bruising pressure, pressing so close they might as well be sharing the same space. "Is there anyone you'd say no to?" he grits into L's ear, his other hand snaking down to grab him roughly.

L's face stays blank, but he goes still in Light's grip just before something like a grin splits his eyes, though his mouth doesn't move. "You're jealous," he says softly, being almost gentle.

"Shut-up," Light bites back, hips pressing tight and close and merciless, demanding L's immediate white flag of surrender. And L will give it to him, L will give him anything because that is the game, because for some reason he's convinced himself that offering himself up like a sacrifice to someone he believes is Kira is a good idea. Because he is ridiculous and disgusting and wrong, wrong, wrong, and _Light is going to kill him someday._

His hips snap forward and his tongue shoves against L's and he wants to get as close as he can, crawl under the skin and live there. The material of L's jeans is rough against his length and he can't seem to get enough friction, even when he shoves L into one of the clothing racks, pushing in between the clean white shirts and identical pairs of jeans. It smells like cotton and detergent and his cock throbs and his head rolls and L lets himself be pushed and pressed and maneuvered into whatever state Light likes, clothed legs spread and head leant back against the wall. He's so calm he could be dead, should be dead and Light will make him, Light will _kill him_.

He comes pathetically quickly with that thought chasing through his head, and he doesn't understand it and he doesn't like it, except for the fact that something in him really, really likes it.

"You're disgusting," he whispers again, just so L understands.

L who is holding him up and stroking his hair and only slightly hard in the jeans that Light has just spilled all over. He feels small and sick and horrified with himself, and he flashes back to that image from early on, that image that burned itself into him like a brand so that it's hard for him to blink some days without seeing it on the backs of his eyelids. L on his back and hurting and begging and completely at Light's mercy. It should make him sick instead of dizzy with arousal, but it usually does a bit of both.

Light stumbles back and L stares at him like he's something curious and strange that he would like to put in a box and study. Light still kind of wants to hit him. He looks down at himself, disheveled and shiny with water and sweat, looks over at L, clothes stained with come, and can't help curling his lip.

"I need another shower," he says.

They take it together and it's the first time they've ever done it like this, for some reason. Light decides that he doesn't like it, because L keeps looking at him and petting his hair and touching his skin with kind hands, and it's so frustrating and patronizing that it's not long before Light's pressing him face-first to the tile wall and jerking him off like there's some unavenged mortal feud between his hand and L's dick.

They're late for that morning's taskforce meeting and Aiber just smirks and Wedy clinks the ice in her glass and L makes some half-scathing comment in a clueless voice about Light's beauty care regiment and avoids answering several phone calls. Light fantasizes graphically about burning the entire building to the ground while vehemently insisting to himself that he isn't.

He gets no work done.

* * *

**three weeks later.**

* * *

One of the first things that strikes Light when he gets his memories back is this: Despite the past few months, the urge to kill L has not gone away.

The other things that strike Light are these: L has beautiful hands. L has beautiful fingers and eyelids and vertebrae and shoulders and ankles and teeth. L is beautiful, somehow. L is his favorite person out of all the people he has ever met in his life. L had not lied about the snowstorm and Light had secretly known it all along. L should be tested for STDs. L should pose for figure drawing classes. L is a terrible person. L has beautiful hips. When Light kills L, it is not going to be with the Death Note.

* * *

**tbc.**

* * *

**end notes:** okay, okay, so let's talk about this chapter for a second, yes? although there is an overarching plot, and a rather unoriginal one at that, a lot of what's going on in these early chapters was greatly inspired by a kink meme prompt (ha, I know!) along the lines of "Light thinks he's special because L is willing to have sex with a suspect, but as it turns out, L fucks all of his suspects. Cue Aiber, Wedy, B, etc." so, um, I wasn't kidding when I said that L fucks _everybody_ for justice. next chapter, be on the look-out for major l/light fic cliche number two: beyond birthday.

much love to you all for reading.


	4. quiet things

**warnings: **all the usual, with bonus actually-penetrative!sex and unusual drinking buddies.

**notes: **I don't know what happened here? This chapter - and the next, which more or less immediately follows it - pretty much wrote itself. And it didn't write itself particularly well. Stay tuned for the longest, most un-sexy sex scene, with the least amount of actual sex contained therein. If that doesn't make sense now, it will soon.

* * *

**chapter four - quiet things**

* * *

_"the gentleness that comes,_

_not from the absence of violence, but despite_

_the abundance of it."_

- Richard Siken, _Crush_.

* * *

It's morning and Light has tea and miso and L has a coffee cake and a coffee and they're both more or less bodily exhausted at the little make-shift breakfast table, so when L sucks the crumbs off of his finger and casually says, "You really have to stop beating up on me," Light doesn't even bother to glare.

"What are you talking about?" he says, sighing deep and long-sufferingly, as if he can play his way out of this with a roll of his eyes.

"You know perfectly well what I'm talking about. Don't be deliberately obtuse." L sets down his mug and pulls the collar of his shirt down to reveal the angry purple bruises lining his lower collar bone, watching Light's eyes twist with a little bit of surprise and something sharply like arousal, before going blank and unassuming. "If you want to play the hapless victim correctly, Light-kun," he continues, "you have to stop injuring me. You almost sprained my wrist the other day. I had to get Watari to bring me ice while you were sleeping."

It's been like this all week, since Aiber in the bathroom, and L has been looking for some way to shift Light's overbearing possessiveness to his advantage, but so far all he's got to show for his attempts are finger shaped bruises and bite marks. Every time L has talked to Aiber since, or even Wedy, Light has jerked him away as quickly as possible, brow crumpled and eyes seething, just waiting until they're alone so that he can pin L to the nearest flat - or not flat, he's become considerably less picky - surface and kiss and touch and _hurt_ him. L doesn't particularly mind the injuries so much as he does the negative effect the behavior has been having on their rapport. Light has barely spoken to him in the past few days, outside of work and asking if L is going to let him fuck him yet.

To the latter, L had said no. Partly out of pure self-preservation, and partly because it isn't the right time yet. Light is too angry to really let L in, to let him see him for what he is.

Light goes statuesque and tightlipped as soon as L says this, composing himself to be as distantly polite as possible.

"Are you sure I did that to you?" he says, and then with a slightly cruel tilt to his voice, "Maybe it was Aiber. Or Wedy, I suppose. I've heard she has quite the grip."

He's baring his teeth at L, fists going tight, and he's really nowhere near the liar that he had been. He's obviously angry, and if L doesn't play this conversation right he's probably going to end up spread out on the breakfast table with Light pinning him down.

It's not as if L couldn't fight him off, and rather easily at that - he's professionally trained in eight forms of martial arts and non-professionally trained in several more - but that would be counterproductive. He'd thought maybe he could ride Light's annoyance out, let him work out his issues on his body and then go back to the comfortable closeness of before, but Light seems to work himself into fits of rage as easy as he breathes or does calculus. He's so brilliant and so childish and so _angry_, and it might be tragically enamoring if it didn't hurt as much as it does.

L takes a bite of his coffee cake and rolls his eyes. "I haven't touched Aiber or Wedy and you know it," he says. "You're with me 24/7."

"No, but they've touched you," Light counters, quietly vicious.

He can see Light gritting his teeth and half of him wants to cup that jaw, to hold him steady and drag his fingers through his hair and tell him to be calm. Kira is really quite a terrible mess of a person under that perfect mask of his, and there's a part of L that, when faced with this confused, virtually innocent version of him, wants to believe that he could somehow save Light. Make him see the error of his ways, make him understand. But L is not so idealistic, and Light would never stand for it, anyway.

"I'm almost a little disappointed," L says, slumping forward to drop a few more sugar cubes into his coffee, purposefully neglecting to look at Light directly as he speaks. "I'm nurturing a bit of hope that this is all part of some overarching, murderous scheme, because, otherwise, this blatant jealousy is rather beneath you." His spoon clinks against the cup as he stirs the sugar in.

"Really?" Light snaps, not seeming to think before he speaks. "I could have sworn _you_ were what was beneath me."

His brow furrows after he says it, and he looks almost disappointed in himself, too, like that hadn't been what he'd meant to say.

He's been like that a lot lately, always glaring and snapping and saying things not half as pretty and neat as the things he usually says. L's trying to decide how to respond to him, to either say something quelling and kind or else bait him further, but before he settles on a course of action, Light is standing abruptly and marching out of the room.

The problem with them - one of the many - is that it's very difficult for either of them to storm off from a fight without dragging the other along after himself. L stumbles up from the chair, trying to keep his balance as he thinks of what to say. This had been his intention, he admits - to get Light to react, to poke and prod him until he did something, but he hadn't quite resolved on what to do after.

At the sound of L's footsteps, Light stops, back tense and jaw grit. L has a brief image of going over and unbuttoning his shirt, of slipping it off of his shoulders and unzipping his trousers, too. Of pressing his face into the back of Light's neck in the way that Light sometimes presses against L. Of taking some sort of initiative that isn't sideways and roundabout and experimental. It's a very quick flash, though, and after it's over he just goes to stand next to Light, a few paces back.

"You're angry," he says.

Light breathes out, sounding suddenly too tired to be truly angry.

"Yeah," he says.

"At me?" L asks, moving closer. He could move his hand now, he could stroke down Light's back and say something comforting. Instead he just stands there, close but not touching, as Light pointedly avoids looking at him.

Light takes a few steps away, facing the small refrigerator and minimal counter space. There's a fully functional gourmet kitchen in Watari's rooms, but L hadn't felt it would be beneficial to provide the taskforce with that kind of distraction. He's sure Light's figured as much out, given the home-made sweets that come out for L virtually once a day, but he hasn't remarked of it and L hasn't asked him. There are a lot of things - most things, really - that they don't need to talk about, they both just _know_, and further know that the other knows, too.

This is not one of those things.

"I don't know," Light says softly, sounding almost guilty. "I feel weird." He looks over his shoulder at L, eyes not as sharp as usual, expression approaching confused. "You make me feel weird. I'm sorry. I don't know why - "

He cuts off his apology abruptly looking away again, and he looks so young just then and L doesn't know what to do. After a moment, he walks past Light, the chain dragging on the floor between them, and hops up to sit on the counter, legs tucked underneath his chin. He opens the tin next to him and pops a couple of sugar cubes in his mouth, more as an attempt to appear as normal as possible than any actual desire for them.

Light's looking at him with his eyes hazy, the way they sometimes get.

"A man almost killed me during sex, once," L mumbles, crunching.

Light freezes, expression suddenly going focused again, eyes narrowing at L in order to try and spot the lie, or else the truth of it. "One of your suspects?" he says, very slowly.

L drops another sugar cube into his mouth. "Yes, I suppose."

He doesn't remember the sex specifically - it had just been one encounter out of many and it blurs together with the rest of them, pale skin and thin fingers and a wide grin - but he remembers the hand around his throat, remembers the spark in the back of his mind burning him out, remembers the blackness and the feel of the wood floor on his cheek when he had woken. Remembers B's eyes locked on him when he'd dragged a hand through L's hair and said, _"I was trying to kill you."_

L would have been fine with writing it off as accident, but B hadn't let him. _"I was trying to kill you,"_ he'd said, and L had believed him completely.

Light looks at him with something between disgust and fascination and L of course knows that he wants to ask about the who and what and when and why of it. His mouth is set in a line and when he moves closer half of L wants to flinch.

"Why do you let them - " Light starts. "Why do you let _me -_ "

And L's not sure how relevant it is that Light doesn't refer to himself in the same terms as he does _them_ - criminals, suspects, ne'er-do-wells - but he does qualify them in the same position of wrongdoing in relation to L. Which is interesting in so far as it's different than what he knows of Light, who is usually unable to identify any wrongdoing in his own actions, no matter how cruel and unusual. Before - the first Light, the _real_ Light, maybe - would never even have so much as questioned his own moral standing, L's sure of it. The way he's wavering now, unsure and ashamed of himself, can only mean progress.

L might feel guilty if he hadn't lost the ability years ago.

"You told me you knew," he says from his perch on the counter, letting his voice go gentler than it had been, no longer sounding as if he's conducting a science experiment.

He more or less is, though _physiological experiment_ is probably more accurate. As he is in all things, Light is the best possible test subject, reacting and rerouting his hypotheses almost constantly, producing results he never would have foreseen. L sort of wishes that he hadn't killed all of those people, but is also sort of glad that he had, because if Light weren't Kira, Light wouldn't be anything and L would be in England now, or the Czech Republic or South Africa or some other place that he isn't, instead of standing in the tacky kitchen of a building that he had built specifically to trap an eighteen-year-old boy, regaling him with tales of his sex life in the same tone you would use to tell a horror story.

"That was before," Light scoffs, "when I thought it was just me. You think I'm Kira." It's maybe the first time he's ever said those words with something closer to pride than anger. "You think I'm your equal, and I am. It makes sense. But anyone else, it's wrong, they shouldn't - "

He sounds honest, which probably means he's lying while simultaneously planning out L's murder step-by-step in his head, but still. He sounds honest.

L gets down off of the counter. He thinks it's probably safer if he stays up there, as far away as possible, but he gets down and goes over and stands before Light, and it feels very mechanical, but also very unpracticed, like these are new movements that his body has just learned.

"We do plenty of wrong things for justice, Light," he says, and his voice is quieter than he means it to be, but he decides when he hears it that it's just the right volume. "I think you know that. Or you did, at one point."

Light meets his eyes then, caught off-guard even though he shouldn't be, should be used to it by now. There's too long of a silence before he speaks, and he doesn't quite manage to sell the cynical laugh as he turns away and says, "Can we please let up with this 'memory loss' stuff, L? Just this once. I'm not any different than I've always been."

He says _L_ instead of _Ryuzaki_, and L thinks to correct him, but he doesn't.

"Yes, Light-kun," he says, quiet still. "We can let up."

They don't speak much today either, both concerned with their separate bits of research and avenues of investigation, and although the silence is not particularly congenial, it's not angry either. Even when Aiber comes by to ask a question about Coil and leans so far over L that he might topple over, Light doesn't glare or sneer or bite out his tight, sharp smile. If anything, he might actually roll his eyes, giving them the once over before going back to his work.

L isn't sure how he feels about that. L isn't sure about a lot of things lately.

* * *

Light shifts his strategy.

That's what you do when something isn't working - which is rare for Light, but it happens - you do _something else_. That something else is easy to slip into, after years of practice, of smiling softly and opening doors and saying quiet, clever things to make the girls giggle and blush behind their hands, overjoyed that he's even speaking of them. It doesn't take much mental strain for him to come to the conclusion that Aiber isn't exactly going to go for that, not with the terms they're on now, so his best bet in this situation is Wedy.

Light doesn't really know much about her beyond what L has told him - thief, L's former case, currently in L's employ. The whole sex thing, which Light's not going to think about anymore than he has to, because for some reason doing so makes him grit his teeth so hard his jaw starts to ache. L has fucked Wedy. L fucks everyone, it seems, and Light files the information away in some well-guarded little folder in the back of his mind full of information on L, examining it calmly and coldly, just another piece of the enigma.

L fucks everyone and Light is fine with that, he really is, but right now he wishes he had a way to get L to fuck off.

"That's fascinating," Light says, eyes crinkling with his smile. Wedy is showing him how she had placed the cameras in the Yotsuba members' homes and vehicles to leave as few blind spots as possible, although sounding rather bored as she does it, red painted fingernail flicking from screen to screen.

When he'd asked her to talk to him about some of her infiltration and surveillance techniques she'd looked surprised for a moment, cocking a suspicious eyebrow. "L?" she'd said, and Light had known she would - teaching the prime suspect how to break in is as good as teaching him to break out, after all - but L had just nodded, silently watching them. As Light had known he would.

After initiating a conversation with them, it's usually only a matter of time before most people end up adoring Light - if they hadn't at first glance - or at least respecting him, but Wedy is professional and, unlike with L, suddenly not one for extraneous conversation, and he ends up having to do a lot of legwork just to get her to speak.

"Excuse me if this is intrusive," he says, lowering his head slightly to look up at her through his eyelashes, "but I was just wondering how L ever managed to catch you? World's greatest detective or not, you're extremely adept at your profession." He says it as respectfully as he can, because thievery is still a crime and she is still a criminal, but seeing as that information isn't of much use to him currently, he sets it aside.

She looks at him evenly, eyes only glancing briefly over his shoulder to shoot a look at L, who's been watching the conversation as unsubtly as possible since the beginning.

"It is intrusive," she says, breathing out a long plume of smoke that catches him right in the face - L has long given up trying to get her to take her cigarette breaks outside, because every day is one long cigarette break for her. "And I bet you can answer that question for yourself if you think hard enough about it. You're a smart boy, right? "

Her lips twitch but she doesn't smirk, and Light gets the distinct impression that L has said something to her, because otherwise she'd be putty in his hands right now. Either that or she's just intoxicated; she's been drinking gin by the barrel all day, Light wonders that she doesn't just load up an IV and roll it around after her.

"I've been told as much," Light replies, trying to angle the conversation in a genial direction while simultaneously fighting hard not to roll his eyes. Everything Wedy says sounds like it's straight out of a 40's noir thriller, and he vaguely wonders if the only spy training she's had had been from the movies.

"Wedy," L speaks up suddenly, cheek squished childishly against his palm when Light turns to look at him. He's nodding at something across the room. "You have good reflexes. Matsuda's about to drop something. Go help him."

Matsuda does, in fact, look like he could take out several full-grown men with the foot-high stack of documents that he's clutching to his chest like a precious family heirloom. Wedy cocks a look at L that expresses a sentiment along the lines of, _'This is so far beneath me,'_ but gets up to do as asked. Light watches her go with a mixture of amusement and frustration.

"It's not going to work," L says, when Wedy is barely out of earshot. Light looks over at him, face as innocent as possible, even though they both know exactly what he's trying to do.

"What are you talking about, Ryuzaki?" Light asks, going back to his computer screen.

"Wedy's a professional, and that aside, she's known plenty of men like you."

He's not eating anything, but his fingers are tugging at his lower lip and Light really wishes he wouldn't do that, because not only is it an infantile, unsanitary habit, it's also terribly distracting.

"Like me how?" Light asks, leaning back in his chair again, laptop forgotten.

"Oh," L says, eyes rolling up as if he's just now giving it some thought, "charming," he says, "and ruthlessly manipulative."

Light has to physically prevent himself from laughing out loud, because he knows that L is hypocritical, that he hides behind a mask of justice while being secretly so far from just that the starkness of the lie is almost poetic. L doesn't seem poetic, reeks of computers and technology and mechanized logic, but he is. That's the secret to everything, maybe. In the same way that Wedy is the femme fatale of her own private drama, L has constructed himself a place as the Sherlock Holmes of his personal little mystery, where he is the good guy and Light is the Moriarty, the villain pulling the strings.

L is poetic in the same ways that he is unreasonable: quietly. To look at him, you'd think he was the antithesis of subtlety, but Light's spent enough time with him to know that he's not, that there are layers and layers to everything he says. And so when he calls Light, _'ruthlessly manipulative,' _it's, of course, not even close to all that he's doing.

Light's lips quirk clever at him. "So take away the charming part and we're talking about you, yes?" he says, because under the layer of arrogance that is under the layer of social awkwardness, there is a strange self-deprecation to L, like even from behind his play-acting, behind his facade as the face of justice, he knows his flaws, knows that he is not the person he ought to be.

Light knows he's hit the nail on the head from the way L's expression stops its frozen stare and fades out into a distant, unreadable sort of pleasure, almost like he enjoys the fact that Light can read him so well. Maybe he does.

"I like to think I'm very charming," L says, biting his thumb, and of course he's not even attempting to make the lie sound believable.

Light huffs a quiet laugh, deciding to get back to working on Wedy some other day. He has more important things to do. "You like to think a lot of things," he says, and for possibly the first time ever the fact of this doesn't really bother him.

Watari calls in to tell L that there's a call for him on the secondary line, but L insists that they have more important concerns and closes the line before Watari can offer anything approaching an argument.

* * *

Light had made some comment about not having been outside for weeks, mostly just poking fun, not really meaning anything by it, but L had taken him up to the roof anyway. L - obviously, given the chain, given that they're never more than six feet from one another - hasn't been outside for weeks either. He just hadn't noticed. Watari sometimes has him take pills for vitamin D deficiency because it's not uncharacteristic for L not to notice. He forgets, sometimes, that there's a world out there, and it always rather shocks him to see it.

They stand on the roof for a bit, but it's cold and the view doesn't really mean a thing to either of them and Light looks more than a little relieved to get back to their heated, cushy bedroom. The bedsheets are warm in comparison to their skin, and although they might intend to kiss or touch or fuck - because now is one of those times that L feels like it would be easy, like he wouldn't really have to force himself at all - they end up staring at the ceiling and talking about Yotsuba and then about the case in Argentina two years ago, because although the methods are very different, the motives for the two cases appear quite similar. That takes them to the subject of world travel, and all the places L has been and that Light pretends he has no interest in visiting while being quite obviously jealous. They talk about the sort of far away, mundane things that don't need to be skated around and carefully measured and secreted away.

They talk about the sort of things that friends might talk about.

"I hate snow," Light says emphatically, at one point.

It's unremarkable as a comment in and of itself, especially from a sheltered teenager who get extremely annoyed if there's dirt on his shoes, but from Light it's almost endearing in its innocence, its straightforwardness of sentiment. His brow is crumpled softly and his hair is in his eyes and, "I hate snow," he says, and L thinks - for surely the first time with regard to Light, and maybe the first time with regard to anybody - that this is someone that he does not want to leave.

He thinks nothing of prosecuting him, or finding out beyond a shadow of a doubt that he's Kira - that seems an inevitability. He just doesn't want to leave. There will be other cases after the Kira case, and that makes L sad in ways he's not sure he knows how to be.

"My first memory is of a snowstorm," he says, which draws Light's eyes from the ceiling and over to him. L would like to think that he hadn't meant to say it, but he suspects he rather had. Not now, but the thought has been hanging in the back of his mind lately, with the bells. He doesn't ever think of the snowstorm, except for those time that he does, those times that it claws its way out from the corner that he'd put it in and then it's in him and it's cold and white and terrifying in a way that nothing else has ever been.

Light is still looking at him and his eyes are so warm that L doesn't really know what to do with the expression in them. Or, well - of course he knows what to do with them, with Light and the way Light is looking at him and what he's obviously feeling for him. He just can't seem to make himself do it. Making Light fall in love with him seems simple at this point, like some errand that he's been putting off and will get around to any day now.

He flicks his gaze along Light's collarbone, cheek pressed into the pillow, and meets his warm eyes. "I don't think I knew that it was a snowstorm at the time," he says. "I don't think I knew what a snowstorm was. I was very, very small and cold and I was being carried by someone, either toward or away from a church. I remember the church-bells."

Light's fingers are coasting through his hair then, brushing it up out of his eyes, and it's so easy. It's easy to make him believe it, to make him think of L as some tragic, misfortunate hero, to make him feel things the way L can make anyone feel things, if he puts his mind to it. There is nothing his mind cannot do, no criminal he cannot catch. If there's something like guilt licking deep and hollow and the pit of his stomach, then that's nothing to do with any of this. With _justice_.

Light's fingers smooth across his forehead, and they're warm like they always are, a familiar pressure.

"That sounds like the beginning of a Victorian-era tragedy," Light says softly, but he's smiling slightly, looking at L with a fondness usually reserved solely for his own reflection and a few particularly well-tailored suits.

And it does, doesn't it? L's never been very good at navigating the cliches. He is sure he is a cliche himself sometimes, and other times a wild anomaly. He is not quite certain of how to categorize Light within those parameters, either. Light, who is looking at him with the sort of eyes that schoolgirls daydream about, or maybe schoolboys, because Light could shift even the most discerning of tastes. He looks, in fact, so overcome with sheer adoration that, within the space of a few seconds, a thousands little neurons firing through his brain, L manages to convince himself that Light is just acting, that Light hasn't fallen for it and never will. Anything else is almost disappointing.

So, he turns his head slightly, slipping out from under Light's fingers, and says, "That's because I just made it up."

L is always making things up. L is just as much of a liar as Light, truth be told.

Light's eyes widen slightly, brows going up, and then he does something horrible and incongruent that makes L's stomach shift uncomfortably. He laughs. "I should expect as much," he says, shaking his head with that familiar air of long-suffering annoyance, but he doesn't seem truly put off by it, and that's where the trouble lies. "Can't you ever tell me something about yourself that's _true_?"

L looks at him for a long moment, then shifts slightly, reaching over to get his laptop. "There are no true things about me, Light-kun," he says quietly. And then, without fully intending to, "Now go to sleep, we've got a long day tomorrow."

Light looks genuinely surprised then, mouth opening and then closing quickly, trying to catch up with L's shift. He watches L for a second and then nods, but doesn't actually do as he says and go to sleep either. Sniffing slightly, he digs up his own set of documents and matches L page for page, hour for hour, not sleeping until L takes pity and shuts his laptop, pretending to settle in for the night so that Light will, too.

It's a kindness, maybe, but cruel in that it only delays the inevitable.

* * *

When Light wakes, L isn't there.

Everything stutters into dim focus in the low light of the early morning and so much has happened in this room that Light would have assumed that nothing could surprise him at this point, but L isn't there and it's like that moment, like breaking a vase or a mirror, and that moment just before it hits the ground where you're sure that what you've dropped isn't really falling, that it won't really break, but then it does and you sit there looking at the pieces and wondering how it had happened and why you can't just put it back. It's such a small moment, not even really a proper space in time, that it shouldn't count.

Light feels like that. He sits up in bed and L is gone and he feels like that for a long time.

He's been with L for just a little under three months, but he's woken every day next to him, and today he isn't there and Light just sits there not knowing what to do with himself.

The cuff still digs into his wrist, but the other end of the chain is wrapped around the bed post and Light watches it with the hazy unease of morning. He shifts and it clinks with the movement.

They've made more progress on the case in the last few weeks than they have in the last few months. They're closing in on Yotsuba. Kira is becoming more and more obviously not Light. But in that moment, as he sits there in the bed by himself, Kira seems very small and L seems very, very large. Like one of them is real and one of them is a dream Light had once.

The sheets smell like come and detergent and then three things happen very quickly, so quickly that they might as well occur all at once.

The first is that L walks into the room, shutting the door softly behind him like he's afraid of making any noise. He looks even thinner than usual in the gaunt shadows of dawn and something that would be a smile if L was a person who made facial expressions flits through his eyes when he sees Light there, awake.

The second is that Light smiles back, opens his mouth to say something very clever and very charming, and ends up coughing loudly. His throat is still lodged with the thickness of sleep and he might have been coming down with something yesterday besides, so he just greets L by hacking into the crease of his elbow with little dignity. L stands at the door and watches him. He's got his cell phone clutched in one hand and his wrist looks bare without the handcuff around it.

The third thing that happens is very quiet. Light realizes - or maybe resolves - in that moment that he is never going to fall in love, but if he were going to fall in love it would be with L and it would be right then.

It's a horrible realization, almost, because L is wrong in so many ways and this isn't the life that Light is supposed to have. But L's jawline is sharp and his presence is comforting in the same way that being alone used to be. Light's eyes water embarrassingly at the sting in his throat when he clears it.

There's an alternate universe somewhere, maybe, in which they've never met and _L_ is just a letter in the Latin-derived alphabet to him. By that logic, there must also be universes where at this point Light rolls his eyes and says something snide - like, "I'm flattered that you trust me to sleep all on my own," - or scoffs and rolls over, or just pulls L onto the bed with rough hands and demands that they fuck. Those would be the smart things to do, the right ways to play the game.

In the current universe, though, Light doesn't do any of those things.

He swallows, wetting his throat, and looks at L's exhausted frame, at the phone clutched in his hand.

"What is it?" he asks, quietly.

Because L wouldn't have left him on his own unless it was something important, wouldn't look so heavy and small, standing there with his back to the door. He stares at Light for a long moment, then steps forward, walking to about halfway across the room and then stopping again like he doesn't know how to go any further.

Light should just shrug it off, but he waits patiently for L's steps to pick back up again, for him to make it to the edge of the bed. The sheets are cool and Light's skin is warm against them. When L leans over and kisses him, it's a gentle press of something so sharp and bright and terrifying that he forgets for a moment how to kiss back. In an alternate universe he is suave and perfect, but in this one his mouth opens at the wrong time and his hands are unsteady and - and this is it, this is the vase crashing to the floor.

This is the tiny space in time where he would fall in love, if he were the type of person who did things like fall in love.

L pulls back. They're always on level ground - or otherwise a sliding scale and wins and losses that balance out - but Light suddenly feels much, much younger than L. It settles in him, a new sensation. He doesn't think he'd even felt this young when he'd been a child, can't remember a time when he wasn't far and above everyone around him. It strikes him, vaguely, in the back of his mind, that he might be a very different person if he had grown up surrounded by people like himself.

Before L, he hadn't know that there _was_ anyone out there like himself.

L steps back to pull off his shirt before reaching quickly past the gaunt outlines of his ribs to pluck at the button of his jeans. He drops his phone on the mattress with a soft sound, and Light leans back on his hands, just watching. L takes off his underwear, too, and Light watches harder.

He is beautiful in the way that very dirty, ugly things are beautiful. The fact that he is beautiful at all jags sharply through Light's mind as an inaccuracy, but he must be, because he looks it then. He is long and tall and black and white. He looks like something out of a story about death.

The first time, the night L had up and planted himself in his lap not a month and a half ago, Light had been surprised by how heavy he'd been, a solid body instead of the wisp of bone and hair he appears to be. By now the weight of him is familiar and when he slides across the bed and into Light's lap, it's with a cool, quiet familiarity that aches through Light when they touch. He tries to remind himself that L doesn't even really like him, that this is all just an elaborate strategy, that they tend to hate each more often than not.

He tries to remind himself, but the way L's thighs stretch across his lap is unbearable, a quick, harsh choke of sensation that isn't physically felt so much as psychologically experienced. Light remembers that fantasy of strangling him and it's even more perfect now than it had been, with L in his lap, with L looking like the gutted insides of a fairytale prince and acting stranger than all of the usual put together.

He pulls Light's pants down his hips and Light nearly coughs again because of how his breath flinches through his throat to catch and wheeze and gut through him, making him feel sick and powerful and powerless and like maybe in an alternate universe he would know what to do. Maybe he would grab L by the hair and make him suck his cock, make him weak the way Light feels weak, make him beg for all of the things that Light wants so much to beg for.

And maybe in another alternate universe Light would love him and love him so well that it would be the end of the story. Maybe when L wraps his fingers around Light's cock, Light's hips wouldn't stutter helplessly and his eyes wouldn't get blurry and the ends of his fingers wouldn't feel hollow and cold with a searing sort of want, but in this universe all of that happens and it is either horrible or wonderful or a curious mix of the two.

L's hand slides over his cock, barely pausing before he moves onto his thighs and hips and waist, petting the skin like a tease until Light is almost gasping underneath him, face flushed and palms clenched against the mattress. He wants to grab at L, pull him close, make him touch and stroke and do all the things that he ought to, but he can't seem to move from his desperate slump, heady with the barest traces of L's touch.

L gives him a good long squeeze eventually, but it's slow and ungenerous, pulling at his insides, at his coiled muscles like some wonderfully debilitating disease.

In a weird way, Light considers what it would be like to die here and now, and it scares him, because for the moment it somehow feels like a very real possibility, one that it is terrifying because it means that all of this will stop and go away and be gone, and the idea that this could be anything but here and real and vibrant and all over him, crawling under the skin and peeling back his eyes and lodging thick across his tongue, hurts him in a way that cannot be measured, or spoken, or even properly felt. Light doesn't know how to properly feel this. It would be terribly romantic if it were romantic at all, but it is just offset and strange and wrong, wrong, wrong in the most right of ways, like a story you want to blot out and re-write, except you know it will come out the same every time, that there is no other way for the story to go, so you just freeze solid and shivering warm. Light feels like that.

Light feels things that he doesn't know the words for.

He feels sick and strange, like a part of his mind has broken off and gone away, and he decides this is what love must feel like. The sensation now must be the echoes of it, from a phantom limb that was chopped off years ago or maybe never there to begin with.

L touches him again and Light is getting his hand sticky wet with pre-come and it's probably pathetic, but he doesn't care. He wants to ask what has happened, what's the matter, because the cell phone is still on the bed next to them and L is acting strange in a way that he doesn't usually and _something_ must have happened. Something must be the matter, but Light can't tell what it was and he can't manage to care as much as he probably should.

L's hand is squeezing him so roughly that it feels like he's being gripped by death itself and he's never felt anything better in his entire life. It's not even good. _Good_ is not the right word for it, but nothing is better, nothing compares.

"L," Light chokes out through the dry strain of his throat, because a part of him is sure it can't breathe and another part is gasping like a man fresh from the sea,

L leans his forehead against Light's own and he looks very serious and very sad and very tired, all without making any expression at all. He presses his lips to Light's temple and says, in the softest, lowest, most important voice that anyone has ever said anything in, "Sometimes I want to pretend that the only thing that's ever happened to me is you."

The words rock through Light like a fever and he finally remembers that he has hands and that his hands have fingers and he brings them up to ghost along L's arms and across his back, clutching him close. L's back is so, so thin that it feels like the back of somebody else, somebody with much less height and influence, and Light's nails tickle the ends of L's hair and L's hair tickles his nails and it's gorgeous in the most unexplainable way.

Light wants to say something very powerful and meaningful back to L, but what he does is lean up and kiss him very, very hard with lips that had somehow become chapped between now and the last time he'd paid attention to anything at all besides L.

L kisses him back and it's a terrible thing, except for the fact that it's the best thing that has ever happened. Light feels unlike himself, like Light Yagami is someone he made up once and played around with the idea of, but wasn't overly attached to in the end. Someone he would gladly sacrifice in exchange for becoming a thing that kisses L and cards its fingers through L's hair and thrusts its cock into L's hands and gasps sharp and uncontrollable into the long tunnel of L's throat.

It's foreign, because the most important thing to Light at all times has always been Light himself and the moment that that fades into the background and L moves in - crowding him, taking up the foreground, taking all of everything - he's struck by just how stifling it is to be himself and just how wonderful it would be to be anybody else.

_Like Kira_, something whispers in the back of his mind, and it thrills within him as he jams his hip up into L's, hands grasping at the thin skin over his shoulder blades to drag L even further onto his lap, until he's practically sitting on Light's cock, long body wrapped around him in a hunch.

_Like Kira_, he thinks agains, as he grinds himself into the crease between L's legs, not caring particularly that L is struggling slightly, trying to slow him down.

It's only once those long fingers have locked into his hair, jerking him into a bent-back gasp that's stuck somewhere between shock and mortified arousal, that L manages to climb off of his lap and over to the small nightstand to dig in the drawer for something that is shortly tossed over at Light, hitting him squarely in the chest. He looks down at where the condom has landed in his lap and wants to say one of those clever things that he would say if this were a normal situation, but it isn't, so he doesn't. It's special, and not in any of the ways that first-times are supposed to be. It's special in the way that very strange and sudden things are, special because it shouldn't be happening like this and wouldn't have happened like this if it were any other day and L were playing the game right.

But L doesn't seem to be playing the game at all right now.

He's got a little tube in his hands that he's flipping open and squirting onto his fingers, and Light's thoughts as he watches him are nothing more than a heady mix of _lube_ and _fuck_ and _nghhh_. Then L is kneeling across his lap again, fingers slipping down behind his back to press into his own ass, and Light's breath rushes out so quickly he almost gets spots behind his eyes. He wants to watch, to see L's long fingers sliding in and out of himself, to shove his own fingers in beside his and make L take whatever he wants to give him. To _give it to him_ the way L clearly so clearly needs to be given it.

As it is, Light can barely move, so paralyzed with scintillating arousal as he is. Head swimming, he groans thickly and vaguely considers passing out, but ultimately decides against it.

L's hands are cold and large as they slide over his cock, getting Light wet, making it easy for him to slide inside. The thought burns into him, the image of shoving inside L and staying there as long as he likes, crawling into him and dying like some helpless creature with nowhere else to go. His mind keeps fuzzing over and he can barely breathe, barely think straight, and this isn't really how it was supposed to go at all, but nothing else could ever possibly feel better.

Light means to fuck L, but it ends up more like L fucking himself on Light's dick, straddling him and sinking down until he's completely filled, then picking himself up again. Over and over and over. Light just watching on in awe.

It feels different than he'd thought it would - and he's imagined it enough times for it to qualify as patently pathetic - and much, much better than it logically should, because it's just bodies, just animal movements in and against each other, hormonal reactions caused by a mixture of chemicals. It's his cock is in L's ass and it shouldn't feel like a fucking religious experience, but it does. He wants to scrub his eyes and shove L away, but he can't move except to thrust his hips up to meet L's, dig his blunt nails into L's back and try to speak against his collarbone, only to manage half-formed, near-worshipful whispers.

He's sure now that this isn't love, because it feels like dying, like a choreographed demise and he can't even think of the morning after because he's convinced himself that he isn't going to wake up, that after this nothing really exists, and everything before was rather a dream or a story or something, and he can't breathe, he -

He legitimately can't breathe, he's going to die here _he's going to die_ and L is going to kill him and he's the one who's supposed to kill L and is that just the part of him that whispers _Kira_ talking or is that really _him_ him and why have his eyes rolled back and why is his vision blank and who's voice is that coming out of his mouth and -

Is he dead yet?

He either has a panic attack or he comes, thick and overwhelming and groaning noiselessly into L's shoulder. He feels L's fingers in his hair and L's cock still hard against his stomach and the gentle rocking of L's hip against his, still on him, still riding him - and _oh god_, that almost hurts. He's too oversensitive, but he can't move his mouth to tell L to stop, so he just lies slumped against him, arms wrapped loose and heavy as L gets himself off on gentle press from Light's limp cock and his thin hand grappling desperately with his own.

_Sometimes I want to pretend that the only thing that's ever happened to me is you_, Light thinks.

He's still not sure that he hasn't died.

* * *

The word _empty_ gets bandied about by a lot of people nowadays, so much so that it's become a bit like _nice_, in that it doesn't really have a meaning of its own any longer, at least in the metaphorical sense. _Empty_ is a word for teen angst and drugstore novels and when one reaches the bottom of the sugar bowl. _Empty_ is cheap and kitschy. Nothing makes L roll his eyes more when skimming through paperback mysteries than the phrase, _"He felt empty."_ Oh, did he? Did his organs slip out? Was he just _so_ very sad? L only reads paperback mysteries to sneer at them in the first place, but _"He felt empty,"_ just makes it too easy.

But standing out in the hall outside of his and Light's shared bedroom, L stares down at the dull grey carpeting and he feels _empty_.

He's got a lot of words in his head, a virtual dictionary that he can sort through quicker than the blink of an eye, but he cannot come up with a better word than _empty_. He hasn't felt like this in years. He thinks he'd forgotten that it was possible for him to feel this horrible.

Other people, sure. There are always suicides and he is always being called onto them - _"Prove that my sister was murdered, Mr. L!"_ and,_ "He never would have hung himself, trust me, I knew him,"_ and all kinds of well-meant but horribly annoying drivel of the like - and it always _is_ suicide. People are sad and people kill themselves and it is a fact and a fact that L knows well. But those are _other people_.

L is L and L is justice and L is not supposed to feel the way he feels now.

But the phone had kept ringing - out of earshot, of course, the secondary line is always left with Watari - and L had known, L had _known_, but he'd finally picked up anyway, finally taken the call.

_The California Institute of Mental Health, Los Angeles Branch. Please hold for prisoner no. 9012398. Thank you._

When the call had finally connected, B's voice had sounded older and a bit harsher - maybe he'd taken up smoking, as one supposedly does in prison - but not unfamiliar. It hadn't even been a bad conversation, as far as conversations go with them - circular, of course, repetitive in nature and certainly quite inappropriate for the workplace, but L has had years to get used to that. It had just brought everything up with it, like being sick.

And the sickness had come out all over Light and now L is empty and it's ridiculous, it's so ridiculous, because he is too good for this melodrama, he is above feeling these things that he is feeling, but Light is Kira and Light is going to kill him or he is going to kill Light and _he is empty_. He can barely make his feet move.

He's still just standing there when Wedy walks by, raising an eyebrow over her cigarette. "Nice shirt," she says.

L looks down. He's wearing Light's button-down pajama top. He must have put it on by mistake when he'd dressed, pulling clothes on mechanically as Light had drifted off to sleep. He hadn't noticed. If he thinks about it, it's probably really quite funny - and the look on Wedy's face confirms as much - but he doesn't think about it.

"I wish that you wouldn't do that indoors," L says, watching Wedy blow half-formed smoke rings around the hallway. He's not sure what she's doing skulking around at this time of night, but then skulking at night is about 75% of her profession so maybe he should just label it practice and let it go.

She looks at him from under her eyelids, glance skating across his bare wrist. "Where's your better half?" she asks in her silky voice, the one that sounds like it was made purely for times like these. Quiet chats in the middle of the night.

L looks down at his wrist. It's strange, the way it moves now, too fast and forceful, like his muscles have been trained to expect being weighed down, tugged this way and that. There are a few red marks, skin chafed from the metal, but other than that it looks like it's always looked, pale and thin across his bones.

L doesn't answer the question, instead says, "Watari's asleep."

Wedy gives him a blank look. "So?"

"So," L says, eyes drifting down to the shifting patterns within the carpet, growing and changing with every flick of the low light, "given your status as a practicing alcoholic, you must have a stash of gin of your very own, for times just such as these?"

If possible, Wedy's eyebrow arches even higher.

* * *

When Light wakes for the second time, L is gone again. It's hard to tell that he'd ever been there at all, the only difference being his white shirt puddled on the floor like a deflated ghost, and… the handcuffs. The handcuffs are lying across the bed, on the side where L usually curls up, pretending to sleep.

Light's wrist is completely free.

* * *

Watari is taking his four hours and so they end up in his surveillance room, watching the quiet building stay quiet. L is curled up on his chair and Wedy is sprawled in hers, two very expensive highball glasses between them.

"No," L says, "more." He motions for her to continue pouring. "Due to my rather extensive training, I have a very high alcohol tolerance."

The drinking had come before pain tolerance but after verbal interrogations. Alcohol is an age-old method of loosening the tongue among the seedier criminal elements and so it follows by direct course that L has been able to drink most grown men under the table since he was fifteen. As a general rule, he doesn't really like alcohol - unless it's particularly sweet, and even then he's better off with a nice virgin pina colada - but tonight it goes down easy, like fuel to a tank.

Wedy watches him with heavy eyes. "Shame," she says, after a moment of long quiet, "I was planning on getting you wasted and taking advantage."

That's all of what Wedy is: clever lines and quiet moments.

L watches the last drops slide down his glass, landing harsh and bitter on his tongue, and he winces with it. It tastes horrible. He feels horrible. He's just fucked Kira. Light Yagami. Kira. Does it really matter which? He'd wager he dislikes them both equally.

"You know I don't need to be drunk for you to do that," he says, pouring himself some more.

Wedy sips her own, glance skating away from him and over to the lines of monitors, thick with static and stillness. She shrugs. "According to Aiber, you've gone… soft." Her glance down at his crotch is as far from subtle as possible and L assumes that invoking the name of Aiber must somehow have the immediate effect of lending a quaint sleaziness to all situations.

He almost rolls his eyes. "I have more pressing concerns of late," he says dismissively.

She eyes the way Light's shirt hangs across him. "Clearly."

This conversation skates across L's skin and he'd really like to talk to someone he can actually talk to right now, instead of having to put on a show, but Wedy is the only one around and when he'd been alone he hadn't felt like he could breathe. The combination of the alcohol and the conversation is dulling him down, away from the sharp, manic point he'd been at out in the hallway. He tries to think of someone he _would_ actually like to talk to and comes up empty.

Watari is there, Watari is always there and Watari will take care of him if he needs it, but it isn't - they don't _talk_. L doesn't talk to anyone. L doesn't need anyone. L ought to go back into the bedroom before Light wakes up, but L is vaguely terrified.

A strange, small, ugly part of him sort of wishes that B would call again.

Wedy breathes out a thick plume of smoke and then takes a sip from her glass. In her leather pants, she looks like the poster girl for the criminal underworld.

"L," she says, after a long silence, "is he really Kira?"

The question jags through him and he feels vaguely like jumping out of a window. Or drinking this entire bottle of gin. Yes, he really doesn't drink, really doesn't enjoy it at all and would never do such a thing during an important investigation such as this, but he is going to drink this entire bottle of gin and it is a _great_ idea.

"Yes," he says, after several long seconds. "Or no. I think he's lost his memories of being Kira." He watches the liquid dripping slowly into the glass and calculates the amount of alcohol per serving and serving per bottle and then scratches it all out and throws it away, because he doesn't really want to know.

"Convenient," Wedy says.

"Yes, very."

Wedy waits for him to continue and when he doesn't, huffs an impatient breath and taps her long nails against the console. "And you think he did it on purpose?" she asks. He wonders how much she actually cares. Wedy is usually an ask-no-questions type of girl. "How exactly does someone induce memory loss in themselves? Bad bender?"

L shrugs, sips from his highball. "The same basic way someone causes mass heart attacks from a remote location, I'd assume."

"What? Do you honestly think there's some kind of magical ESP power involved?"

Wedy is a skeptic. Being skeptical is one of her favorite hobbies, second only to being cynical, and she practices them both with the air of someone who has done all of the other things there are to do already and has fallen back on these just as a matter of course. He knows that's untrue, of course, knows her whole history top to bottom, and though it's no jaunt in the park, he's known histories a fair bit worse.

Still, he likes her skepticism. It fills the space where his own should be.

"There's a rational explanation for everything," he tells her, making a face at his drink. He wonders if it wouldn't be completely ridiculous for him to sprinkle some sugar into it. "Just, depending on what the Kira case reveals, I may have to reassess my definition of what qualifies as _rational_." He pauses for a moment, then adds, because he can't make himself not, "Besides, it wouldn't be ESP, anyway, which refers to a theoretical trans-temporal method of receiving or transmitting information, not remotely causing myocardial infraction. In fact, anything falling under the umbrella term of parapsychology wouldn't qualify for Kira, although there were a series of interesting experiments in the 1960's using - "

"Okay, okay," Wedy says, cutting him off with a sharp series of clicks from her nails against the table. She smiles at him with indulgent annoyance. "You know I don't understand when you use big words."

L scoffs into his glass, feeling as he suspects she must often do, considering the amount of time she spends scoffing into glasses at people. "Yes, you do," he tells her. "I hate when people pretend not to be as smart as they are." The words roll straight off his tongue and he still feels empty, but in a lighter way than he had before. Like he could drift up and out of the room without even really noticing.

"I'm suddenly reminded of why we never fell in blinding, passionate love," she says, and smirks around the words to make them come off as harder than they are. "You never really liked me much, did you, L?"

There'd been a time that he'd hated her, a time when he was 18 and B had only been gone for a year and he hadn't known how to solve her case, how to catch her up, so he'd done the only thing he hadn't tried yet - he'd come onto her. Sex is about power and L had needed power, and instead she'd smiled pretty and dug her nails into his back and - to be slightly crass - kicked his ass in the bedroom. He'd hated her.

"I like you now," he says, and drinks his drink.

She's going to say something back, maybe, and he rather hopes she will because if they're going to have this conversation - this conversation they've never had but always should have - he'd like to do it while intoxicated. But then she stops, eyes catching on something to the left of him, and L glances over at the closest security screen to see what's going on. The first thing that L notices about Light is not that he's out of their room, wandering through the halls unsupervised in the dead of night, but rather the somewhat disappointing fact that he's gotten himself out another sleep shirt instead of putting on L's. Maybe that's a clue that he's had a bit too much to drink.

"Kira's on the loose," Wedy says, stubbing out her cigarette and seemingly thankful for the distraction.

L leans toward another screen, squinting to make out the figure reclined in an arm chair in the room adjoined from the one that Light's walking through. "Not just Kira," he murmurs, and if he were the sort to make vulgar exclamations when unfortunate events occur, he would be swearing like a sailor now.

* * *

It says something about the pathetic state of his priorities that, having found of himself free from the chain, the only thing Light can think to do is to go look for L. He almost wishes he had some sort of devious scheme waiting in the wings, if only because he could use the diversion at this point.

Unfortunately, another diversion presents itself not a few yards away, in the form of tall, blond and the very last person Light wants to see at the moment, save maybe Misa - and only because he hasn't quite sorted out his unreasonable feelings of guilt in regards to her. Aiber is sitting down and there are creases in his slacks and if Light were the type of person to ever feel at all inferior, he might be uncomfortable standing there in his pajamas, but as it is he just crosses his arms and sets his face is a tight, disapproving line, like Aiber is intruding on his existence just by being there instead of L. Which he clearly is.

"Uh oh," Aiber says, setting his book aside - and Light briefly marvels at the idea that he can even read. "How'd you get off the leash?"

He looks like a statue in one angle of the light - broad and fair, like one of those armless, cockless Roman masterpieces, except in a terrible suit instead of a toga. Then he shifts and the dull fluorescents hit him differently and he just looks exhausted, light stubble and tired eyes and only a dim flicker of that jovial vitality that he usually wears as a second skin. Light hasn't really thought about his age before, but he must be a least ten years older than L, maybe more, considering how long they seem to have known each other. That thought might strike Light with something like disgust, if he had room in his head for anything besides the trilling displacement that fills him up in L's absence, in the wake of what had just happened.

"L undid the chain," he says, after what might be too long a pause. His voice sounds strangely distant to his own ears.

Aiber gives him a long look, then stands slowly. "Considering that Kira can control the actions of his victims before they die, I'm not exactly reassured," he says, but it's devil's advocate, he's not afraid at all and Light can tell he's just saying it in order to be contrary, though he still slips a hand into his pocket and pulls out his phone, fingers jabbing deftly into the keyboard, presumably alerting L to the situation. Light doesn't mind; Aiber has only shortened his search.

Light hates that he's not afraid, although he doesn't know why. There is nothing to be afraid of. Light is not frightening, but at the moment, he rather wants to be.

"You don't really believe that I'm Kira," he says, pushing stray hair out of his eyes in a gesture so practiced it's become second nature. "Do you?" Any other time he would say the words with quiet, unassuming charm, displaying a vaguely hurt innocence that would melt everyone in a fifty foot radius. But he says them quite flatly tonight, not putting on a show at all. He uses this voice with L sometimes, late in the night when he forgets to arrange himself, forgets to perform. He wishes L were here now.

He wishes L were here.

It's a very weak thought and Light will resent himself for it later, but he just stands there in his pajamas waiting for Aiber's reply and feeling strange and unlike himself. Like he's lost something. Like L had fucked it out of him.

"No," Aiber says, "I don't."

The look he follows the words with makes it clear that he doesn't mean to do Light any favors with this opinion. He's just underestimating him, is all. Light isn't Kira, but he _could_ be, if he wanted. He can do anything. He'd just had sex with the world's top three greatest detectives and L is probably in love with him - because how could he not be? - and he could be Kira in a heartbeat. The thought burns through him the way it sometimes does, and although he usually shoves it down, usually _aches_ with it, this time his mind thrills.

"Given how these things usually turn out, though," Aiber continues, watching him with unusual vigilance, "odds say that L's right and I'm wrong." He leans on the wall beside him, hip cocked and trying to look casual, but there's a heaviness to his words that Light has never heard from him before. "Still," he says, "I hope you're not."

"What," Light says, taking the word and wrapping it up in a clever tilt of his lips, "do you think I'd kill you?"

It sounds innocuous - just a taunt - but it fills him up with a sickening jolt of something torrential and ruining, something inside of him that claws at the walls and he thinks maybe he goes lightheaded for a second before everything snaps back into steadying focus and Light realizes what he'd just said. He feels sick. He wants L to hurry up and come chain him up again, but doesn't acknowledge the thought.

Aiber laughs. It sounds hollow.

"As if you could get my name. Not with L alive, you couldn't. Hypothetically, of course." He checks his phone and smiles slightly, typing something back, and if it's L he's talking to then Light hates the both of them tremendously in that moment. Aiber looks up again. "No," he continues, "I just know that our illustrious leader has, well, a bit of a thing for the criminal element. The badder the better," - and he does a little suggestive eyebrow twitch there that makes Light want to hit him - "and as far as bad goes, Kira's the cream of the crop. I reckon if it turns out you're not him, he'll lose interest in a snap."

He even snaps his fingers for effect. Light grits his jaw and counts backwards from ten.

It's not true. It's not true, and they both know it. Aiber is just slinging impotent barbs around because he's jealous. Light is L's favorite. L keeps him close, sleeps in the same bed as him, never lets him out of his sight. _Where's L now?_ something whispers to him, but he drowns the voice out because the voice doesn't know what the fuck it's talking about. L had come to him, L had come to him and crawled into his lap, had given himself up to Light because Light _deserves_ him, has earned him. It had started as a game, but it's not anymore, or maybe Light has just won and L is his prize, because _this is different_.

L fucks everyone but Light is different and it's okay. L will come and get him and put the chain back around his wrist - why does he want that, he shouldn't want that - and it will all be okay.

"You're wrong," he tells Aiber. "You don't know anything about L."

Aiber actually has the gall to snort at that. "I know a fair bit more than you do, kid," he says, sighing and shaking his head.

And what right does he have to laugh at Light when Aiber is just a minuscule little bit player in the story that is Light and L, the game that isn't a game. He's nothing. He's nobody. Light is the hero and L is his nemesis, or maybe his right hand man. Or maybe he's L's. It doesn't matter - it's them and no one else, because everyone else is useless and L is the only that's worth anything in this _rotten_ world and -

"I'm not trying to be cruel here," Aiber says, and he sounds honest, but lying is his job and Light doesn't believe a word out of his mouth. "Look, I know, okay? The eyes, the jaw, the quiet tragedy. _I know_. He's got a certain charm about him and he turns it on when you least expect it. But L is not a good man." His phone beeps again, and he looks down at it with a quiet smile. "A great man, maybe, but not a good one."

Light knows that. Light wrote the book on that. L is bad and Light is good - but L is his now, so it's different.

"I'm not stupid," Light says, voice ringing with that pleasant tilt of the tone, and he wants to smile but he feels like he might snarl instead. "I'm Japan's top-ranking student. I know what he is."

"Do you?" Aiber says. "Hmm." And then he looks Light up and down and something bright flicks into his eyes and he says, if not the very last thing Light had expected him to say, then definitely close to it. "'Sometimes I want to pretend that the only thing that's ever happened to me is you.'"

His coyote grin deforms the words and there is a very short moment that feels very long and everything sort of tilts off its axis and falls to the ground.

"What?" Light says, more quietly than he means to, because for a moment he doesn't understand.

Then, for the second time that night, the vase, the mirror, all of it - it shatters.

* * *

Wedy lights another cigarette and watches the scene unfold onscreen like a television program. "Is it really safe to have him off the chain in the first place?" she asks idly.

A plume of smoke catches L in the face and he doesn't wince. "Don't worry," he mumbles into his glass, "he's not going to kill Aiber. As much as we all might wish for it. He's not any danger as he is now."

Still, he should go. Light is his responsibility and although at any other time L might have been interested to test his reactions to Aiber's particular brand of confrontation without L being there to referee, now is unlike any other time for a number of reasons. One of which being that L is rather tipsy.

Another of which is that for the last week or two, L's been getting almost daily calls from The California Institute of Mental Health_, _Los Angeles Branch, and ignoring them under the guise of keeping his full attention on the case at hand, but in reality only because nothing shakes him up quite like conversing with Beyond Birthday. B makes him rash and young and then he trips up, he always trips up, and this time he'd tripped right into Light's lap, nose-dived into the thing he's been putting off for almost a month and a half. They'd fucked, and if L's track record is any indication, it's not long now before the case will be over.

The case will be over and Light Yagami will be dead, maybe. Maybe L will. He doesn't know why that makes him feel like his insides have been gutted out with a fish hook, but he's half sure that the only thing still sloshing around inside of him is gin and possibly that milkshake he'd had earlier.

His phone buzzes in his pocket. _Lose something?_ says a text from Aiber.

_Misplaced,_ L types back with one quick finger. _I'll be right there._

He doesn't get up. He half considers just sending Wedy in his stead, but even he's not that cruel of an employer. His phone buzzes again._ No need to hurry. I can play guard dog._ He takes that as a sure sign to hurry. On screen, Light's jaw is grit and he looks like he might just go Texas chainsaw on Aiber in the next minute or so. L has purposely left the sound off.

He suspects he's being very unprofessional as he drains his glass, and as much is confirmed when he tries to step smoothly out of his chair and ends up swaying on his feet a bit. He should drink water. He's not in any way headed toward the kitchen, though.

"If he murders me, wake Watari," he says to Wedy without turning around, and then slumps off down the hall. His thighs burn and his head is blurred and he really wants pie after this.

* * *

"Heh. I can't believe he still uses that line," Aiber says, fiddling lazily with his phone.

The world sort of stutters for a second and then everything flips into a sharp point of horrible clarity. _L is not a good man_. He feels sick. He doesn't think he's ever been ashamed of something before in his life, not truly, not that he can recall, but it burns through him now with Aiber's words. He is disgusted with himself and it fills him up with sick understanding, because Light is smart - smarter than anyone - and it doesn't take a genius of his caliber to catch on.

There's a very small, pathetic part of him that can't quite believe that this is happening, and that must be the part of him that speaks first. "He - what did you just say?"

Aiber has a small indentation between his brows that creases when he grins, and maybe it's very handsome, and maybe L has touched it with his long, pale fingers before, a long time ago. Maybe recently. Light feels sick.

"He used it on me, too, the first time," he says. "And Wedy. She told me about it once while we were on a case in Bangladesh. We got completely hammered and swapped all our favorite L stories. I assume he uses it on everyone. All his suspects, I mean." He says this all very quickly, like a performance, and then continues with barely a breath. "It's a good line. I tried it once, but the girl just called me a creep and threw a martini in my face, so I guess it needs to be delivered in some specifically wide-eyed, anemic way. Anyway, you see what I'm getting at, right? You're just another piece on the board with the rest of us and he's the chess-master."

And he looks at Light then like he is a child, and _no one_ does that to Light - except L - and there's something in his eyes that's almost sympathetic - Light doesn't want his sympathy - Light hates him, hates both of them, hates L more, probably. It's a game. It's all a game. He feels like all the air has been sucked out of the room because _it's just a game_ and _L uses that line on everyone_ and _thinks he's a Kira_ - he's not Kira, he's not, he's not - but L thinks it and how could Light think that L could - would ever - how could he be so _stupid_?

Light feels sick.

The crease in Aiber's brow shrinks a bit, like the fun has suddenly been taken out of what he's doing. "Don't feel bad or anything," he tries weakly. "The sex is still good, right?"

And - no. No, no, _no_. Light can and has taken a lot - a month of incarceration, a staged execution, _L_ - but if there's one indignity he won't stand for, it's pity. Not from anyone, and least of all from a half-wit conman who smells like a department store and wears sunglasses indoors. Light is so above him, Light is so above all of them, L included.

L especially.

The world resets in his mind in that moment, the glass un-breaks. L never came into the room and fucked him in the middle of the night - and if he did, then it had only been a game, and Light had played along. It hadn't _meant_ anything. Light had only played along. That is what had happened. The world resets, and Light convinces himself of this reality and rejects all others.

He takes several slow steps forward until he can smell Aiber's cologne and smiles very calmly, and very unkindly. "I am not a piece," he says. The words cut through the room and it sounds like proclamation of king, a mandate set down by royalty. Light Yagami is brilliant. He is the top student in Japan. He, if anyone, is the chess-master.

Aiber's expression goes tighter suddenly, nervous, and Light feels quite self-satisfied until he realizes Aiber's gaze is shot at something over his shoulder. He knows it's L, and that's using basic reasoning skills, even though it feels like some sort of odd sixth sense. Like the world only shifts back into focus when L is there, six feet and no more between them. Light turns to look at him and means to say something but doesn't.

_It's just a game_, he thinks. _Play the game_. But his throat is lodged shut.

"Light," L says, so flatly that it doesn't sound like a word at first. He takes his steps forward slowly, like he might sink through the floor at any moment, and speaks very quickly so that the words rush together. "Fancy meeting you here. I hope you don't mind, but I need to physically restrain you to my person. And if you do mind, even then." He puts a hand out to take Light awkwardly by the arm when a few moments have passed and Light doesn't move. They're so used to just pulling one another along with the chain - a game of a tug-of-war in a secret language - that direct contact seems oddly impersonal, in a way. "Come along."

Only when Light finally begins to let himself be carted off by his captor does L appear to take notice of the third person in the room. "Aiber, get some sleep," he says, and it sounds very much like an order. "We can't have Coil looking haggard for Yotsuba tomorrow."

Aiber's smile slips several times, but he tries to put it back on. He really does look tired.

He taps the space under one of his eyes, then nods to L, who is nothing but dark circles. "Just trying to get in character," he says. In another situation, said in a very different voice, it might be teasing. It might be flirting.

Light follows L back into their room, seeing neither the hallways nor the elevator, the journey blinking past him in a flash. L's grip stays locked on his arm the whole time, a shackle binding them together as well as any chain, and Light has images dancing like pinpricks in the back of his mind of those hands wrapped around his shoulders, digging into his back, his hair, his face. L's grip has always been surprisingly strong, and Light can almost imagine it burns him now, branding a mark onto his skin through the material of his sleeve.

L is wearing one of his shirts and yesterday that would have been arousing and intimate and maybe a little thrilling, in some way that Light has to bury now in order to think straight. He's too thin, and it hangs on him like a sheet, but still looks better than his usual clothes. Light briefly fantasizes about dressing him, about putting him in nice, fitted suits and getting him a hair-cut, coifing him up the way that people ought to be if they want to be with Light. Making him a pretty little fake, like Misa, instead of the ugly liar that he is.

_Ugly_, Light tells himself. L had been very ugly once and he tries to see it again - focuses on the too-wide eyes and sickly pale skin and the gaunt crookedness of his frame - but he can't. He remembers the jagged dips of L's back, shifting and arching under the skin as he'd ridden Light, forehead pressed to his temple and warm breath sifting out like steam, and he can't see it. Thinking of the sex at all, though, makes him angry, so that's at least something. It makes him feel gutless and hollow for a moment, but he quickly shifts it into a bubbling sheet of rage that pools under his skin and on his tongue as L leads him back into their room.

Time seems to slow as L slips the handcuffs back on, first on his own wrist, then turning to Light's. Light imagines jerking the chain out of his hands, grabbing it and grabbing him and just wrapping it around his neck - like a collar, like a noose - pulling him close and breathless, making him gag and choke and beg - with silent, breathless words - for mercy. He thinks these things sometimes: disgusting, vile, _bad_ things that titillate him the way nothing else can. Fantasies, dark and wrong and buried deep; not all of them involve L, but most do.

He doesn't act on them, doesn't ever, wouldn't dare. Instead, he waits until the handcuffs are fastened securely on both of them to grab L by the collar of his own shirt and throw him down on the bed, pinning him with the weight of his hips. It's a game, just a game, but Light doesn't want to play, is _so fucking tired_ of playing - the way Aiber is, the way L makes people. L is a horrible person who ruins things, who crawls his way in, down under your skin, so deep until you can't get him out. Light thought he could make him better, could help, but L is beyond saving.

Light feels sick.

"_'Sometimes',_" he says, in whisper-soft voice that he spits into L's ear, "_'I want to pretend that the only thing that's ever happened to me is you.'_"

It's a taunt and L knows it, is a genius after all and can catch up even if he hadn't heard Light's conversation with Aiber, which is always a possibility. He doesn't look afraid, but he does look wary, but also sorry in a way that makes Light ache. _It's just a game, just a game, don't_ -

"You knew what I was doing," L says, very quietly, staring up at him with those wide, ugly, horrible eyes. The circles look darker than usual.

Light feels sick.

* * *

**tbc.**

* * *

**end notes:** *throws hands up*

As you can see, I have given up on resisting the unexplainable desire to turn this first arc into a melodramatic workplace romance. Fear not, in a few chapters we'll get to the obsessively psychotic angst and murder. For now it's just a lot of hurt feelings, because who doesn't like to see Light drown in a pool of his own tears? (rhetorical question. let's face it, we all love the crazy fuck.) One of the great things about L/Light is that (if you follow the tried and true cliches the way I like to) you basically get to do two versions - the yotsuba lovefest of bed sharing and make-outs and general cuteness, and then the aftermath when Light inevitably regains his memories (and his status as a certified lunatic) and everything goes predictably to hell. We're in the former now. (I know, you probably couldn't tell, given all the psychosis already flying around - my good!Light isn't overly good, is he?) We'll get to the latter.

Things in this chapter that are unclear or otherwise don't make sense will hopefully be somewhat explained in the next chapter (i.e., the B stuff.) As is probably obvious at this point, the Beyond Birthday in this AU is very much alive. I have no good excuse for this except that I very much wanted to write him, so let's just assume that L didn't let his name and face end up on public record and leave it at that.

Thank you for reading and, especially, for reviewing. Thank you all, in general.


	5. forgive us our trespasses

**warnings:** all of the usual and, uh, dub-con. and minor violence.

**notes:** Because apparently I have some sort of narrative kink for fucking with the timeline, let me make a note of the fact that the first scene of this chapter does not follow the last scene of previous chapter and actually takes place between the third and fourth scenes of last chapter (aka, it's the missing phone call with B.) The second scene of this chapter, on the other hand, does return to our regularly scheduled programming.

/it should not be this complicated but it is, gah.

Thank you to everyone who is reading/reviewing/passively glancing at this fic. It means the world. (and if you're a guest or have PMs turned off, know that I was dying to reply to your reviews and am heartily appreciative of them.)

* * *

**chapter five** **- forgive us our trespasses**

* * *

_"Lovers and madmen have such seething brains."_

- William Shakespeare,A_ Midsummer Night's Dream_

* * *

Light has been asleep for almost three hours when the call comes in, the sixth one that week.

L looks at the flares of the pale city light against his skin, slanting through the window to ripple across his body, painting him in stripes. He keeps his eyes locked calmly on Light's outline, muted as it is in the dark, as he does something very stupid and answers the phone. He tells Watari to get some sleep as he transfers the call over to his cell, and knows that he will, even though he is worried, even though he knows as well as L that this is very far from a good idea.

But L is not a child any longer and the world is full of bad people, many of which he has faced at one point or another. There is no reason for him to hide from the proverbial monster under his proverbial bed.

He deliberates over it for only a moment before fishing out the key and unlocking the chain, quickly slipping the cuff off of his wrist and wrapping it around the headboard, leaving plenty of slack for Light to sleep comfortably. He won't be long, and even if he is, it doesn't matter. Light's not a threat as he currently is - couldn't possibly be - and he repeats this to himself as he moves quietly across the room and out into the hallway, deftly shutting the door behind him and then leaning back against it, taking a heavy breath.

He uncurls his fingers from where they're clenched around the phone, trying to steady himself. He is not afraid. _He is not afraid_.

"What do you want?" he says flatly into the receiver, bracing himself for the harsh, languorously mad giggle in response. He is not left long in waiting.

B's voice slips in like something smooth and dirty and terrifying in its familiarity. It's a voice L hears sometimes when he hasn't slept for days and days, when there is some puzzle that he is unable to solve._ What would Beyond do?_ he'll ask, and then detest himself for the urge. It's been months since they've spoken, and the last time had been so brief that L barely remembers it. He hadn't let himself stay on the line long enough to hear anything but the answer to his question, a _yes_ or a _no_.

_"Do you know anything about Kira?"_ he'd asked. It had been a long shot - the longest of shots - but it had been early in the case and something about the way Kira killed, something about _names_ had pinged B sharply onto his radar. A long shot, but he'd tried.

_"Come to California. Come see me and I'll tell you." _

He'd remembered the taunt in that voice, the promise, from years and years ago. There is always a quality to B's voice that makes him sound as if he knows so many mysteries, knows the answers to all the questions that L asks himself quietly in the night. L has always, always hated him, but he's always let him speak. Even if the things he says are cruel and degrading and wrong, wrong, wrong. Especially then, maybe.

_Fuck you_, L had wanted to say, but instead he'd just hung up and not tried again. He'd assured himself that B hadn't known a thing, was just playing a game. B's always playing games. There's nothing he likes better.

He starts with one now. "What are you wearing?" he asks, breathing heavily over the line like a seasoned pervert. L wouldn't be surprised if he started licking the phone. It's a farce, of course, a joke at L's expense. That's one of the games they play: stalker and victim, villain and hero, bad guy and good guy. B performs all of his roles to a tee; L can barely navigate his.

He simply rolls his eyes at the current display. If there had ever been a point when sex could be used to make him nervous, it's long since passed. Overexposure tends to have that effect.

"What do you think?" he says dully. B knows what he wears and has worn every day for years and years now. He knows because, for many of those years, he'd worn the same.

The laugh on the other end of the line is only half-real and its familiarity is jarring.

"_Boring_," B says, like they're on a game show or something and L isn't performing adequately. He's always been like that, always loved a performance. "When did you get so boring, Law - "

L doesn't let him get further than that.

"B, don't," he snaps, letting the natural strain of authority bleed into his voice. "You don't use that name. Not on this line. Not ever."

He doesn't have time for this - Light could wake up at any moment and, although there's no particular security risk to that, it feels to L like something that shouldn't happen. He doesn't want him anywhere near his name, near B and everything that he knows.

L thinks, not for the first time, that he would have been better off just killing Beyond and being done with it.

"I was going to say _L_," B simpers, voice trilling over the line like a jingle.

L wonders if it's the same voice he uses on the orderlies to get phone privileges often enough to constantly hound Watari's answering machine. It's been a while, but he used to call all the time, like a school boy trying to get a date or something, always, _"L, what did you think of last month's conference on neuroscience?"_ or _"I've been considering the Oort cloud…"_ or _"I miss your tendons, I want to rip you tendons, please, please please, come and visit."_

B can play very charming and reasonable when he wants to - can play any role, though L's is his favorite - but he so rarely makes the effort, preferring to get what he wants through blunt force trauma and crawling mind games. Simple manipulation is beneath him. L thinks that if B ever met Kira, he'd probably look very much down on him - possibly almost as down as Light would look on him - but _no_, L's not going to think about that. L's not going to think about Light at all, because when he does he gets a pit in his stomach that aches and twists with every stray thought. It says something very bad about the state of his affairs if concentrating on B makes him feel even the slightest bit better.

He remembers a time when thinking about B made him want to curl up and decay slowly in the far corners of dusty, shadowed rooms. Remembers when he'd done just that.

"Don't call me that either," L says after a moment. "Use _Ryuzaki_." He knows that will garner no good response, but he says it anyway.

"Oh?" B hisses through the phone, and he sounds even tinnier than usual over the wires. A thin, metallic whisper. "Maybe you should call me Ryuzaki, too. You call me and I call you. If it goes on long enough, we might not know ourselves from each other." He giggles and it's absolutely mad. "It'd get awfully confusing, wouldn't it?"

"No," L says.

"It would for me," B says.

"Maybe you're not as sharp as you used to be. A place like that, it could rot your mind," L says.

_L says, B says_. That's how all of their conversations go, back and forth, round and round - circular and never-ending and maddening. L sometimes wonders if B's plan all along has been to drive L just as insane as himself. He sometimes wonders if it's working.

"It's not so bad here, as it goes," B tells him, and he's lying, of course - US mental facilities are notoriously terrible, and L had made sure that the one that B was put into had a particularly brutal reputation - "apart from the food and the general sense of creeping desiccation. It's just that there's nothing to do. I've even been banned from art therapy."

"That's what happens when you put someone's eye out with a crayon," L says lightly, as if it's to be expected. And it is. "Yes, they contacted me about that."

B makes an annoyed, ruffled sound, and L would think he was waving a causal hand through the air if he didn't know that B is almost consistently either straightjacketed or at least handcuff to something. "It was a colored pencil," he says, "and he's allegedly going to make a full recovery so I don't know what all the fuss is about. People are always fussing about these sorts of things and I never know why."

Liar.

He'd learned how to lie from L. B had always known how to act, how to play pretend, but he'd learned how to lie by watching L, always watching L.

"You know why," L says softly. B has many, many faults, but not understanding things has never been one of them. "You just like to watch things - hurt."

He mean to say _die_, _watch things die_, but he says _hurt_ instead and it rocks something wild and long buried inside of him. Apart from the general uselessness of it, speaking to B always makes him feel sick and weak, as if he's just come down with some awful, incurable sickness. Speaking to B makes him want to see B, and that's something he _cannot_ do.

"Why did you call, Beyond?" L says, trying to get this over with.

"There are patterns on my walls," B says, very quickly and quietly and not answering L's question at all. "I thought it was all white, but it's not. _There are patterns_," he repeats, insistent, like he suddenly needs to make L understand something. "I can see your face, the shapes of your eyes. I can see you in everything. You follow me." The rasps are mounting. "You think I follow you, but it's the other way around. You follow me, L."

L feels sick. He wants to hang up, but he doesn't want to go back into a world where he'll be chained to Light Yagami and B will keep calling - stuck between a rock and hard place. He doesn't want to be in this world, on this case. He thinks about England, about the small flat he sometimes rents in London - not on Baker Street, though he'd had Watari try for the sake of symbolism - tucked into a little corner where no one would think to look. He wants to run away, in some quiet, inexpressible way that he will never, ever act on. He wants to run.

"Why did you call?" he repeats softly, too softly and not at all in the stern, no-nonsense tone he means to use. "You wouldn't tell me a thing before. What's so important now?"

His head is still pressed against the door and for a moment he thinks he hears a noise from behind it, a clink of metal shifting against metal - _no, no_ - but it stops as soon as it starts and he lets his breath out, listens to the words that are filtering, static and messy, over the line.

"You wouldn't come in person," B tell him, like he's forgotten. "I would have told you what you wanted to know if you'd only come in person. I still would now." He sounds for half a second like the six-year-old boy that L met all those years ago on a sharp, bright winter morning - that boy, small and desperate and frail in an almost unreal sort of way. _"A little monster_," Roger had said to Watari, under his breath. L had heard him anyway. So had B, probably.

_"Nonsense_," Watari had replied. L remembers watching the frost gather on his mustache and thinking it must be very inconvenient to be grown up. _"He's brilliant_."

L had decided some years ago - in the very late hours of the night, on one case or another that he could have solved with his head cut off - that all the most important events in his life have happened in winter. He'd been brought to Wammy's in the winter and B had come a few years after, during one particularly cold February. The bells, too, during the snowstorm.

He'd first started investigating Light Yagami last December.

And no, he's not thinking about that -

Except that he is. He always is.

"It doesn't matter anymore," L says, after too long a pause. "I don't need your help, and I doubt that I ever did." He can hear Aiber down the hall, humming a French pop song to himself. He hopes he doesn't come this way, and resolves to fire him or something if he does. "I'm almost through with the case, anyway."

B does something that sounds suspiciously like biting the phone, rattling the speakers with a hysterical chomping noise and an even more hysterical laugh. "Caught Kira, huh? I'm surprised it's taken you so long. You'd have caught him faster if you'd have only come." He laughs again. "I could have told you. I can still tell you."

No. He's lying, he's lying, he's -

"Come on. Come, come, come. I promise it's good. It's brilliant. Lawl -"

"B," L snaps, cutting the word in half, not letting him finish. He'll have to be put down if he says L's real name and they both know it. B is not worth the risk, not at a time like this. Light doesn't know about him, about one of the few people alive who knows L's real name, and L doesn't intend to let him find out. "I'm hanging up," he says. "Don't call again. I won't answer."

He will find out, though. Not now, maybe, but he'll have to remember himself at some point. Remember Kira. And when then happens, it's only a matter of time -

"Yes you will," B says, the laugh still strung through his voice.

L jabs his finger so hard in the _end call_ button that it will probably bruise.

He takes a long breath, firming up his resolve. If B does anything that is not completely horrible, it's this, the perspective. He reminds L, in some ways, who he is and what he is here for. What he needs to do. And L needs to do it _now_, has been putting it off for too long, and for what? Because he doesn't want this to end? Everything ends, and most things badly. Best case scenario, he gets out of this situation alive. In that case, Light's chances of survival are minimal. He has to face that, to be okay with that.

He stands very slowly, phone clutched rigidly between his fingers, and turns back to the door, bracing himself to go in and fuck Kira.

* * *

**two hours later.**

* * *

He feels liquid and hazy when Light presses him to the bed, flattening him like a rag doll, a weak thing incapable of controlling its own movements. "You knew what I was doing," L repeats, even though he doesn't want to. His thighs still ache from the earlier fucking and his throat is dried sharply from the alcohol. Light smells very good.

"Shut up," he says.

"You know what this is. It's a criminal investigation," L continues, unfazed.

"L, shut up." His hands are on L's throat then, but L doesn't shut up.

"You're a murderer," he says, then pauses. "Probably." He trips over the word somewhat, feeling at once very pathetic and like Light is far more pathetic than he could ever be. He opens his eyes, staring up at that pretty face, skin gold in the dim lamplight and flushed with a lovely sort of hurt. Light looks beautiful even when about to choke him. L puts his hand up, ghosting his fingers against Light's cheek like he wants to touch it, but can't quite make himself. Light's grip loosens on his neck.

"If it helps," L says, leaning up to whisper in his ear, but ending closer to the dent between his neck and jaw, "I do like you better than most of them."

Light shudders slightly against him, body going taut and fragile where it presses to L's chest, thighs wrapping his hips in an airtight, bruising hold and for a moment L thinks that Light really is going to choke him, just kill him here and now and forgo all the needless drama of their regard for one another. Abruptly, though, Light lets go, hands loosening so quickly, like L is a germ he wants to wash himself clean of.

Then he hauls back and punches L in the face.

L doesn't often watch movies, and when he does it's always either case research - as it had been for the Hollywood serial stranglings a few years back - or old detective noir - Hitchcock and The Thin Man the like - but one of the multitudes of discrepancies, he's noticed, between reality and film, is the punch to the face. In films, it's treated like a tap, a minor scrape, a small set-back; reality is not so generous. When punched right, and punched hard, it hurts tremendously, ricocheting through the facial bones and causing a heady, jarring nausea to rise in the temples. L has been punched in the face many, many times in his line of work and, on the list of physical impairments he has been subjected to at one time or another, it perhaps ranks fairly low, but that still does not make it something particularly enjoyable to experience while lying in bed with a handsome 18-year-old boy in his lap.

Especially when said boy is the one inflicting the injury.

After he hits him, Light just balances there, breathing heavily and looking somewhat surprised, and somewhat expectant. L's cheekbone throbs.

"Are you - quite done?" he says after a moment. He slurs the words slightly and winces more at that than the punch itself. This is really, really not his night. Though, from the look on Light's face, it's no one's.

He leans forward, brow quirked prettily - and he looks so young that it might be sweet if L's mind wasn't fuzzy with alcohol and the vestiges of sharp pain - and... sniffs him.

"Are you _drunk_?" he says, sounding more aghast than he might if L had murdered a bus full of schoolchildren. Light Yagami is, of course, far too responsible to drink, even with friends, and certainly not near heavily enough to impair his speech.

L rolls his eyes. "Tipsy," he corrects.

L thinks Light might hit him again, and has half a mind to hit him back, because really, there's only so much he can be expected to put up with. There had been a man once, a truly awful man - ringleader of a sex trade racket in Eastern Europe - who had beaten L so badly the one time that they'd fucked that he'd been in the hospital for the next few days, but it had gotten him what he'd needed. He'd figured out the weaknesses, which pressure points to hit, and he'd hit them all, taking down the whole operation. The man is still in the Belorussian prison where L had left him.

He's reminded of that encounter, just for a second - the silver rings and the silk sheets and the faintly humorous face the man would make when he came, jaw grit and eyes rolled back, funny in the way that things are instead of just being ugly. L doesn't remember his name.

But Light doesn't hit him again, doesn't lay a hand on him, and the difference is what really makes the damning impression. Light's head tilts slightly and he does something that, for all his precise calculations, L had not foreseen.

He laughs.

It is not a Light laugh, neither dignified nor put-on nor stifled behind a hand. It is loud and uproarious, an Aiber sort of laugh - if he has to put a name to it - head dipping back, body rocking over L's with the pangs of his amusement.

L just watches him, not knowing how to react and half-waiting for it to abruptly cut off and reveal some sort of hidden, disastrous plan, but - it doesn't. In fact, it seems quite genuine. L just keeps watching. Light is normally beautiful, but now he is very, very beautiful. He looks like a child, like a _person_, even - if that's the word L wants - careless in his humanity, an unstudied picture of amusement.

"Tipsy," he repeats back to L, like he can't quite wrap his mind around it. L watches the expression shift on his face, shrinking until the smile is only a dry reflection of what it had been a moment ago, sobered now with something sharp and sad. One of his hands comes up, abruptly, to cup the side of L's face, fingers curling lightly against the place where he'd hit him only a moment before. L wonders if he'll bruise, wonders if Light would like him to.

He feels a warm forehead against his own then, and a ghost of breath fluttering over his skin in feathered waves.

"Do you care about me at all?" Light asks quietly, smile completely gone now. He looks very aware, and very small.

_Careful_, L thinks, because Light has played this card before, is taking every opportunity to sell himself as the heartbroken victim in the situation, either the vilify L or to justify it to himself. L's not sure which, but it doesn't matter either way. As long as L doesn't tell the truth, as long as he doesn't show skin, show his weak points, it should be alright.

"Does it matter?" he whispers into Light's hair. It tickles his cheek, smells like sweat and conditioner. It's unsettling in its familiarity, almost a comfort to the senses. "If you are Kira, then I'll have to stop you, probably kill you. And if you're not, then you and I will never see one another again after it's proven."

He says it dully, like he's listing off unimportant facts that might be of interest, like he doesn't care at all. And that's the point, isn't it? To make Light care, but for L not care about him. That's always the plan - make them _care_. Not in some cushy romance-novel way where L becomes the redeeming force in the life of a hardened criminal, makes them see the error of their ways - that's completely unrealistic, and fairly dull besides. No, it's not about changing them - his suspects, _his_ victims, in a way - it's about shifting their world just the slightest bit, about inserting himself as a variable that was never accounted for, and never could be. The police? Of course. A great, world-renowned detective? If the crime rates high enough, it's to be expected. But a skinny, pathetic man in beat-up sneakers and heavy eyes who is _there_ suddenly, who is a factor? No matter if they hate him, no matter if they beat him senseless, he always has someeffect.

Some do care - Aiber; a woman in the tropics with a two-year-old daughter who had been terribly fond of L; a boy on the streets of New York City who'd sworn until the end that they were best friends - some care in the way that could maybe fit into a pretty love story, somehow. L just hopes like hell that Light isn't one of them, because _Kira is different_.

"I'm not - " Light starts, perfunctorily - denying, denying, always denying - but he doesn't sound like he believes it and L doesn't let him finish.

"Just because you don't remember - " he begins, sitting up so that Light's rocked slightly in his lap. Those fine, golden hands go to his shoulders, digging in deep and L wishes it was one of those times when he didn't have to go for the guts, because otherwise they could just kiss now, press close and let their bodies fight it out, instead of their minds.

But they've been using their weaker weapons for too long, so when Light grabs him by the hair and grits, "_Shut up_ about my memories," L doesn't shove him off the way he should. "Shut up, okay. Just shut up. I wish you wouldn't speak. I wish you would never speak." He's talking fast, almost to himself, and his breath is a warm whistle in L's ear. "I could just fuck you," he says, and no, no, not this again, they can't keep doing this, "just fuck you over and over again and you would never speak and it would be _perfect_."

They're supposed to be making progress and this is _not progress_ and Light is shoving his shirt up, fingers rough on his skin and hips digging in and _fuck_, once had been enough, hadn't it? Why can't once be enough?

"Light," L gasps, shoving him off with something nearing full power, and Light trips up a bit, but he regains his balance easily, bearing down on L again like some kind of unpalatable god looking for its sacrifice, for its due. And L is on the alter, L has put himself on the alter, and Kira is claiming something that isn't really his to claim.

It's just a game, right?

"What?" Light nearly moans against his jaw, fingers tearing roughly at the buttons of his borrowed shirt, trying to strip L as quickly as possible. It isn't at all like last time. "Don't pretend - " he says, seemingly struggling with his actions, and there's a flash of guilt across his face, but he shoves it down. "_You_ came to _me_." L's not sure if he's talking about earlier tonight or the first time they'd kissed or maybe the first time they'd met, way back at commencement, the beginning of the game. A necessary sacrifice. "You wanted it," Light growls at him. "Don't you want to solve the case, L?"

"Ryu - " L starts to bite back, correcting because it's the only thing he can really think to do, but Light cuts him off with a kiss, teeth digging into his lips and tongue jamming into his mouth.

Everything moves very slowly, or else very quickly, and L half-wonders - in the back of his mind, in the small, secret place where one thinks about these sorts of things - if Light will rape him. If, should L fight and keep fighting just a little bit, but not hard enough to truly stop him, if Light will go through with it.

Maybe it would be interesting to find out, maybe it would give him a lot of useful information on the state of Kira's mind, on the reality of his morals. It would hurt, of course, would fuck things up right good, but it might be interesting. And if it's interesting, if it's for the cause, then L should do it, right? _Anything for justice_, Watari had said.

"Isn't this the _only way_ to solve the case?" Light is gasping into his ear, a bitter whirlwind of torrid, mind-sparking words. "Surely good old fashioned deductive work can't be the answer. No, it has to be sex. It's just the case, right?"

_Just the case_, L thinks, agreeing. Just a necessary sacrifice.

"It's just a game," Light gasps, practically humping L now in a desperate fervor of something like arousal-stricken self-loathing. He sounds really terrible, sounds gutted, sounds _sad_.

And L thinks that he doesn't want him to be sad. L thinks, _fuck necessary sacrifices_.

He shoves Light back just enough to yank back his arm, gathering power, and slams his fist into Light's pretty face. _An eye for an eye, my friend_. He doesn't want Light to be sad, but he does want to hurt him. L is tired of ripping himself open and showing his seams. L wants to rip someone else.

Light is knocked back and L follows him, switching their positions with a trembling ease, landing them diagonally across the bed with several limbs hanging out over open air and more than a few bitten-off _fuck_'s and _what_'s between them. Light falls like a mannequin, like he's been waiting for this, waiting for so long for L to turn the tables, take the wheel, pull the rug out - choose your favorite euphemism for _control_. L is sure that he's supposed to be in control, and the realization that he hasn't been for quite some time rocks through him like a blow to the gut.

He shoves Light's arms back above his head, kicking his legs apart to kneel between them.

"Fine," he grits against Light's lips, not quite sure what he's agreeing to. "Fine."

"What are you doing?" Light gasps back, because L has always played it quiet, always given himself up instead of taking, because that is how the game is played. That is what L has always done and would do, if he had any sense left at the moment. "That's not playing fair."

L knows he's right, but decides then and there that, despite his pretensions otherwise, he _hates_ the game. He is tired. He is 24 years old and he is tired of everything that he has ever been.

"When have you ever known me to do that?" he asks, pressing in so close he's sure that he'll choke the air right out of Light. Maybe he'd liked that, maybe they'd both just love that so well. It's the right thing to do, in the grand scheme, putting an end to Kira here and now. But L doesn't want an end to Kira and doesn't think he truly ever has.

He slides the sweatpants easily off of Light's hips, holding his chest down with one hand and stripping him with the other. Light tries, weakly, to shove him off, but his heart's not in it, and L barely has to exert any effort to keep him still as he reaches over to the nightstand, shoving the drawer open with a rough grab and pulling out the bare necessities. The plastic of the condom wrapper makes a soft sound when it hits the bed and Light winces beneath him. He looks terrified, staring up at L with eyes wide enough to match his own, but he's stopped fighting.

L doesn't even have to hold him down when his fingers slip inside, when Light's jaw grits and he makes a pained animal sound, like a dying beast, one hand digging half-moon circles into L's arm. It's his first time this way, L's sure, and some other night he would be gentle, would be kind in a way that he can drudge out of himself when he needs to. He would put on a perfect show. This night, however, his fingers move too quickly and his eyes are hard with something that jags in him like hate, like disgust, and when he shoves inside - body balanced and quivering over Light with the effort of holding himself up - he doesn't even meets his gaze, doesn't even glance at his face. He buries himself in Light's body, shoves his forehead against the tense arc of his shoulder, eye's shut tight and jaw clamped down on itself.

Light groans like he's been shot and it's not gentle and it's not kind and it's nothing really, a terrible, mind-splitting moment that L is going to blot out later, the way he does with the parts of himself that he doesn't want to look at.

He suspects Light will hate him after this and prays to a god that he doesn't believe in that he will, because that would make this all so easy. Kira can be the good guy, the hero to his own cause, and L will be the villain, the big bad wolf, stealing innocence and breaking things - hearts, minds, pretty little teenage bodies - and that will make everything easy. He can imagine the taskforce's reaction, the look on the chief's face, the look on Light's. _Look what he did to me_, he'd say, undoing his belt, showing them the bruises on his hips. _Look what the great detective L did to me_.

And L would let him. L would keep his clothes on - not show them the purple fingermarks across his chest, the healing indentations of teeth on his thigh where Light had drawn blood - and wouldn't say a word. Kira could get off the chain, could go free. Kira could destroy the world and at this point, shaking and blinded and on the edge of orgasm, L thinks he could let him.

He comes with a muffled grunt against Light's neck.

Light doesn't come at all, but he's harder than L had expected him to be, pressed between their stomachs. L lies there breathing heavily, pathetically, on top of him, limbs frozen and afraid to move. Afraid to look Light in the eyes.

After a moment, he feels a hand in his hair, stroking and calming him the way nothing ever has before.

Since his early childhood, L has cried only once that he can remember. Watari had watched him, not saying a word, and had held Roger back when he had made a move to do something. B had followed him to his room, pockets full of wet pebbles from the stream that still flows through Wammy's grounds and thrown rocks at him until he'd stopped. L recalls that day with perfect clarity. He'd shoved B out of a second story window and hadn't gotten in trouble. B had just been sent to his room with the nurse and told not to bother L.

L doesn't cry now, but he thinks he feels the way that people do when they're about to. Like there's something thick and horrible lodged in him and he's going to be violently ill.

Light's hand is so gentle against his scalp, and his voice is a quiet hiss of brokenness disguising itself as amusement when he says, "I always knew that submissive sweetheart thing was an act."

L doesn't move. He wishes Light would yell at him, would hit him, would give him more bruises. They could bruise each other, bleed each other, until it would all wash away, until L could feel things for Light other than the things he feels now - the thick, welling, grateful things that skate through his veins like an infection.

"One you fell for easily," he replies against Light's neck, but the words don't come out half as cruel or false as he means them to. Light just keeps stroking his hair.

* * *

Light is in pain, but it's a distant sort of pain, a quiet ache where L is still locked inside of him, chest rising and falling against his own. His back is sloped in a thin arch like some deformed little god of skin and bone and his wild black hair tickles softly along Light's jaw. It's almost funny - in a slightly unbelievable way, because he had been so _angry_ when they'd first touched - but he feels like the strong one now. He had fucked L an hour or so earlier and it had made him weak, taken his control and covered up his eyes, dizzying him with the ruinous sort of affection that takes over lives. But L had just thrown him down and done it back to him, rough and unforgiving and without a trace of kindness, and Light now feels like the one with the power.

And he's never actually done this before with anyone else, this whole sex thing, but he's well-educated and in no way naive, and he thinks he's pretty sure that this isn't how it's supposed to work. He should hate L for the way he's treated him, the manipulation, the blunt force, the _carelessness_.

But L does care, he must, because he looks terrified right now, slumped as he is across Light's body. And if Light has learned anything from him in these past few months, it's terror - the creeping, constant fear of losing himself in another person's hands and mouth and flat black eyes.

So, when L says, "One you fell for easily," in that helpless little voice that's trying to be strong, puffing the words out against Light's warm skin so that his breath tingles through him, making him roll his eyes with the sort of honest fondness that doesn't belong in this situation, he tries his best to sound at least minimally upset.

"I didn't fall for anything," he murmurs, fingers still carding through L's hair. "I played into it. Was I supposed to turn down having you spread out on your back and begging?"

L sits up then, and his hair flops into his eyes like a sheet, worn muscles shifting hypnotically under his skin. "It would have been the moral thing to do," he says, voice flat and empty. Light wants to kiss him, but stops himself, snorting instead.

"Where do you get off talking about morality?" he asks, looking down at the state of the two of them.

L has just fucked him, had barely even given him time to consent, and all logic tells Light that he should be seething about this, humiliated and angry, but he can't even locate the edge of the emotion in himself. He knows that even if L had given him days to deliberate over it, he would have said yes, would have given himself up for the taking. It's disgusting in its way, but Light is still hard and riding the high of some turbulent, beautiful feeling that lives deep within him.

L, for his part, has the decency to look suitably guilty, even as he grits his jaw and says, "I get off right here with you, thank you." He looks even guiltier after he says it.

Light brings a hand up to cup his face and L flinches as if he's been slapped, ducking out of reach. He rolls off of Light, slumping off to the side and pulling his bare legs up to his chest, naked but for the shirt of Light's that hangs half off his shoulders. Light reaches for him again, and this time L doesn't move in time, and thus ends up with a hand back in his hair and Light's tongue licking along the seam of his lips.

Light wants to fuck him again. It's only fair. Back and forth, trading places, over and over again; maybe they'll do this for the rest of forever, just fuck each other into oblivion until there's no such thing as the Kira case or the brilliant detective L.

L doesn't seem interested in this course of action, though, and shoves him away again, head shaking.

"I may not follow the prescribed rules for what is socially and lawfully acceptable," he says, picking up the thread of their pointless exchange, probably just for something to do, "which is a luxury of being L, but I understand them. And I understand when someone is hypocritically pretending to abide by them, while secretly plotting to kill their sexual partner."

Light feels something jolt inside of him, but he tries to shove the sickness down. Not this, _not this_, not again. He doesn't want to play the game, he is exhausted and he doesn't give a _fuck_ about Kira, just wants to pin L down and fill him up, fill his mouth so he can't talk about the case or Kira or basic logic or all the other reasons why this will never, ever work out.

"Oh my god," he says, "can we _not_ right now? You're more of a criminal than I could ever be." The words are not gentle, but he tries to keep his tone as non-threatening as possible, because L looks like some cornered zoological exhibit, backed to the edge of his cage, trying to duck out of sight of prying eyes. _An animal_, Light thinks, vaguely. For all his brilliance, for all the humanity that gives him his pride and his shame and his fantastic mind, he is just an animal. Collared, but wild still.

"That's an argument of moral subjectivity," L says, leaning unsubtly out of Light's reach, "not of guilt."

"L," Light sighs, because he doesn't want to talk about this. His thighs still ache from moments ago - when L had been _inside_ him - and he's still slightly hard, and tired and confused, and wouldn't even mind using his hand to get himself off if afterwards he could wrap his fingers in L's hair and press his lips to his temple and keep his long, wild limbs locked close and quiet. Light wants to sleep and L, he thinks, _needs_ to.

L stands, stepping off the bed and onto shaky legs, slumping there in Light's shirt and facing the door like it's some far away escape he'll never reach. Light thinks he's being a bit overdramatic and jangles the chain slightly to remind him of the situation.

"L," he says again.

"The fact is," L says, not turning to face Light, just letting the quiet sounds of his words muffle their way through the air, "you _are_ Kira. Even if you don't know it now, you _were_. And I fully believe that you were the original, that you were the one in control."

He says it mechanically, like he's reading off lines, like it's just a speech that someone wrote for him and Light half expects for his to pop one of those quiet smiles into his voice and declare that it's all a joke. He doesn't. He stands there, back to Light, looking half-dead and half-dying. Light wants to stand up, wants to go behind him and kiss his neck and whisper calming things into his ears until he goes loose and pliant and stops talking, stop saying these horrible things.

Instead, he just uses the slack from the chain to pull L around by his arm so that they're facing one another again, and asks the question that's been burning through him since the start.

"Why?" he starts, then rephrases. "Or, no, _how? _How could you think that of me? _Me_, L. You know me."

It's like talking to a brick wall, to a computer screen - great, big monogram L staring back at him. Sometimes Light thinks L acts more like a letter than a human being. And the truth is that L does know him, better than anyone. It's horribly cliche, Light's sure, the things that he's saying and doing and feeling. He is just another lovestruck kid in a world of lovestruck kids, isn't he? A pathetic, meaningless exercise in human weakness. Intellectually, he knows this, but the worst part is that he can't even be bothered to care. What he feels for L, whatever it is - and he loathes to put a name to it, because what he chooses will only cement the cliche - but whatever it is, it dwarfs everything else.

L could accuse him of anything and Light would let them string him up for it, because it's L.

_Sometimes I want to pretend the only thing that's ever happened to me is you_. It's a lie, and L is such a liar, but Light doesn't care.

"Yes, Light. I know you," L agrees, almost solemn in his dull, emotionless way. "I know what you're capable of. I know that you're brilliant, and tenacious, and egotistical to a fault." He stands there before Light and it's almost like he's delivering a sentence. Light meets his eyes and doesn't waver. After a moment, L does. He looks at his feet, bare as always and likely cold, toes twitching in the thin night air. "I don't know why you always take accusations of being Kira as insults," he murmurs. "It's the highest compliment I could serve you."

Light feels vaguely like he's going to choke on his own throat. He'd asked the question, but he doesn't want the answer, not really. He doesn't want to hear this.

L continues anyway. "Very, very few people are on my level," he says. "Kira is one of them."

Quite suddenly, Light finds himself standing, too. "_I'm_ one of them," he snaps, instantly ready to take his mounting irritation out on L.

Why can't things ever be easy_? _Light used to hate easy, despise it with a quiet vehemence, because it was _everywhere_. Everything had been far too easy, until he'd met L. Now it's so difficult he's not even sure he can navigate it, which is as unfamiliar a feeling as any that L has introduced him to.

"If you're Kira," L replies, maddeningly, still talking to his feet, "then yes, you are." His thick eyes jag up then, and the look in them is sharp and uncomfortable. "On the off-chance that you're not, then no, you're just a very intelligent boy, but you're not on _my_ level."

Light knows that they've been through it all tonight, but in that moment, he really, really wants to start throwing punches again.

He tries to calm himself down, tries to amuse himself out of it. "And I'm the egotistical one?" he snorts.

L doesn't reply, doesn't meet his faked smile and Light's fists clench. He stands there, facing L head on, but instead of hitting him his hands just come up to massage his own temples. He's working on too little sleep and too much aggression, and _fuck_, he is really sore.

L watches him, calmly, and Light breathes out a long slow breath, shaking his head, as he says, "How could you want a murderer like Kira on your level? How could you feel a connection with him?" He tries to keep his voice flat.

Then L steps forward, awfully close, closer to him than either of them really wants to be to the other at this point, and says something that Light thinks he will remember for years. It is a speech, and it is horrible and Light rather hates him for it, but he thinks he'll remember it all the same.

L cocks his head, hair flopping into his face, and says:

"Light, being a murderer is how you get on my level. It's how you even qualify." He speaks quickly and quietly, not wasting time on emphasis or facial expression. "Genius alone isn't enough. Being L is a dirty job, and you don't come away from it with clean hands. You don't come away from it at all, in fact." He looks at the window behind Light. "I will live and die as a force of justice, I will serve my purpose and solve crimes and put criminals away. I will save the people that I can, and I will kill, and torture, and lie, and manipulate, and _fuck_ when I have to. That's just my job."

He cocks his head to the other side, finger coming up to his lip. Light just stands there for several moments, unsure of how to respond, even though he knows exactly what the right words are.

After a long pause, he asks, not half as angrily as he means to, "Then what is the difference between you and Kira?" He just sounds tired to his own ears, as tired as L looks.

L's eyes swirl around facetiously, as if he's never even considered the question, even though Light's sure he's spent plenty of time doing just that.

"The difference?" he says. "I was here first. And I don't have magic powers. He's cheating, really, if you think about it in that way."

They stand there for a long moment and the L blinks, like he's reset or something and he looks down at himself and then back at Light, both of them barely clothed and thoroughly wrecked.

"Bastard," Light says, for lack of any better way to express how he's feeling.

"Are you alright?" L asks suddenly, ignoring the insult, like it's just occurred to him to ask. "You're not bleeding, are you? I can clean you up, if you like." He lifts his hand like he's going to touch Light, then pauses in midair and quickly drops it again.

Light supposes he's got plenty of experience cleaning up after a night of violent sex. _Whore_, he thinks, though not in a particularly reproachful way, as if he's testing the insult out in his mind, feeling it roll around on the edge of his tongue, wondering how it might taste to spit into L's face one of these nights - after, or during. He shakes it off, deciding he doesn't like it. There's no real point to calling names when he knows they won't have any effect.

L reaches for him again and Light knocks his hand away.

"I'm fine," he says, then quickly changes his mind, grabbing L by the wrist and pulling him close. L slumps his head down against Light's shoulder, more or less collapsing into him. In truth, he's probably the taller of the two, but he makes himself small and fragile for his job. He's just so, so good at his job. "I want to hurt you," Light tells him, although he doesn't know why. He won't do it.

"Go ahead," L mumbles into the curve of his neck, warm lips dragging ticklish patterns on Light's throat.

"No," Light says, sitting back down on the edge of the bed. "I shouldn't want it." L goes down with him and Light's not sure, when he says _it_, what he's really referring to. This, maybe. L, down on his knees, leaning between Light's legs to breath gentle sighs onto his hipbones.

"Yes, you should," L says, not looking up at him. He speaks to Light's middle, to the muscles that are just toned enough, the jut of the erection that he's been slowly losing. It will be morning soon. "You know where you stand, Light, and you know where I stand. You hurt me, I hurt you - rinse, repeat." He presses a kiss to Light's thigh. "It's as it should be. It's the detective story of the century."

"Or the love story," Light says to the top of L's head, before he can stop himself. The light is grey when it hits them with dipping shadows.

L shakes his head, still not looking up. "Detective story, Light. It has to be that." He kisses the other thigh. He's completely forgone the honorific by now.

"I lo - " Light starts, but he cuts off when L jerks so hard on the chain that they might both topple over.

"No, Light," L says, standing quickly.

He keeps saying his name, over and over. _Light_. Not Light-kun, not Kira, not anything but what he is. Light Yagami, 18 years old. Japan's top student. Brilliant.

"No," L repeats. He turns away, dragging Light after him, who goes with little protest. "It's almost six. We should shower."

Usually, a comment to that effect would lead to one of them behind the curtain and the other waiting in the bathroom, L on his laptop or Light flossing vigorously, but today they just stumble in together. L forgets to take his shirt off and so Light has to yank it off for him, letting it hang on the chain between them as the water falls in thick droplets, weighing them down and into one another. Halfway through soaping himself, L abruptly drops to his knees and sucks Light off, his usually teasing mouth giving all and asking for nothing today, maybe as a sort of apology for the half-aborted pleasure from the sex before. When he's done, when Light comes gasping against L, fingers digging deep into his scalp, wrenching his head close and unforgiving, Light drops weakly down onto the shower floor beside him, and they spend the rest of the morning there, pruning quietly as the water gets cooler and the sun rises higher.

* * *

They spend the next few days making up for all the time wasted outside of each other by fucking as often as possible.

By the end of the week, it's more routine than anything else as they fall back from one another, Light rolling off of L to collapse breathlessly on the carpet beside him, rumpling several documents and getting his foot caught in one of the computer wires as he goes. They've done most of the past few days' research in their room instead of down in the main office with the rest of the team, growing farther away from everyone else as they grow closer to each other.

L's not actually sure that _close_ is the right word. Physically, yes, but they don't speak often, and if they do it's never with regard to anything of importance. Thrown together in an ecstasy of unhappiness, they are counting down the days within one another, with harsh breaths and rough hands and quiet in-jokes that no one else could properly appreciate. This will all end soon, and even though Light acts as if they're going to be an unstoppable detective team for the rest of forever, L knows that he knows that the truth is not so simple.

But for now, they do what they do best, and pretend.

Light is cleaning himself up when the knock comes, and freezes with his fingers on a shirt button, shooting L a slightly panicked look.

"Watari?" L calls, because it's rare for anyone else to ever come by the room.

The man who sticks his head in the door then, flashing a wide-mouthed grin at the two of them sprawled across the day's paperwork, is not, in fact, Watari. "Sorry to disappoint," Aiber says, sounding as far from sorry as one possibly can. He looks brighter than he had the other night and L assumes he's either drunk or on his way there. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything."

Light stands quickly, the flush of exertion morphing into one of embarrassment as he tuns around to do up his khaki's. "Of course not," he practically sneers over his shoulder.

L finds it slightly endearing.

"You are," he tells Aiber from his slump on the floor. The carpet is warm and rough on the back of his neck and he's more than a little annoyed that he won't be able to proceed with his previously formulated plan of lazily tracing patterns on Light's bare, sex-warm skin as he reads yesterday's Yotsuba report. "What is it, Aiber?"

Aiber smirks down at L with his languorous eyes, not being at all subtle as they trace the contours of L's bare stomach. "Your girl's back, Yagami," he says, without glancing at Light, who is now staring fixedly into the mirror, trying to right his hair. "And with quite a story, too."

Ah, that's decent news, at least. Misa had slipped Mogi's watch a few hours previous, so it's at least slightly comforting to know that she hasn't gone off on a killing spree, or else to make more awful commercials. L's offered to get her a better agent - half to keep a closer eye on her, half because her current representation has no business sense at all - but she'd just told him that he has terrible hair and that she never takes advice from people with terrible hair. He'd let it go after that.

"And she sent _you_ up?" Light says, not a little scathingly, as he adjusts his collar. Not even two minutes and already he's picture perfect again.

Aiber leans casually against the doorframe as if this is his room and they're the ones intruding, eyes smirking their way up and down Light's outline.

"I volunteered," he says, shooting his glance back to L. "You know me. Always willing to lend a helping hand."

The leer melts warmly across his face, not wavering when L says, "So I recall," about as flatly as he would when reminded of last week's weather.

He assures Aiber that they'll be down in a few minutes - the need to re-dress themselves going unspoken but not unnoticed - but he doesn't actually leave until Light walks over and slams the door in his face with an infinitely polite smile that drops off of his face as soon as he turns back to L.

"He's useless," Light says, voice going peculiarly childish as he walks over to stand above L, looming like a great, golden statue and dragging him onto his feet with the chain. "Come on, you need to clean up." He pulls him into the bathroom, hands L some tissue and then, as naturally as if it were his own, begins to straighten out L's hair. It takes Light a few moments, so absorbed as he is in this insurmountable task, to notice that L is staring at him.

"What?" he says.

L wants to reach out a hand, wants to trace his jaw, wants to lie back down on the floor with him and stay there for days, but he does none of those things. He's afraid he's being terribly sentimental, and at any other time he'd look down on himself for it, but today, for some reason, it feels justified. Necessary, even.

"You are very dear to me, Light-kun," he says, leaning forward so that their foreheads are almost touching, but for the way that L's slump keeps him an inch or so lower.

Light looks ardently surprised for less than a second before he arranges his expression into one of vague interest. "Ha," he says, but it's forced, and he doesn't much pretend that it isn't.

"What?" L asks, but he knows what. Of course he knows.

Light's eyelashes flatten against his cheeks, and it's short - it's a momentary flash of nothing in particular - but it makes something twist itself thickly in L's chest and he has to shove the feeling to the back of himself in order to keep from saying the things that he truly wants to say.

Light opens his eyes then, smile aligning itself back on his face. "Oh, nothing," he half-laughs. "Just, if it had come from anyone else, I'd be insulted by such a pathetic confession." He takes the initiative that L won't touch and drags the back of his hand along L's cheek, a quiet, owning gesture. L has to steel himself not to lean into it too desperately. "From you, though, it's practically a proposal." The amused quirk of Light's eyes is completely genuine.

He's not lying. L's known it for weeks now, has figured that whatever bit of Kira is in him - and it _is_ in him - is hiding deep for now, buried farther than even Light can reach. He is not lying and none of this has been a lie, not really. That should be comforting, but it isn't.

_This will all go away soon._

"It's not," he says, tone more teasing than he means it to be.

"And thank god for that," Light laughs, taking the tissues from L's hands because he's going too slow, and reaching down between his legs to clean him up himself. It's a strangely casual gesture, for how intimate it should be. "My father will put up with a lot," he says, holding up his wrist to shake the chain as an example, "but he's going to draw the line somewhere."

L conjures up a brief image of the look of abject horror that would appear on the chief's face if L were ever to go to him and announce that he means to elope off to England with his only son. It is at once amusing and terrifying. And a bit sad, in its way, because L is not the life that Light is meant to have and, furthermore, surely not the life that he should want. But, behind all the jokes and teasing and pretenses of only casual regard, he truly does seem to want it. There's a part of L that rather wants it, too, but he puts that part in a drawer in his head and locks it tight.

He leans forward, pressing his lips haphazardly to edge of Light's mouth and then pulls away as quickly as he'd come. "Remember this moment, Light-kun," he says. "When I'm gone."

Light gets this look in his eye then, and of course, he understands, though he pretends - even to himself - that he doesn't.

"What?" he asks, trying to laugh it off as L buttons his jeans. "Where are you going?"

"I'm not sure yet," L says, throwing away the dirtied tissues and tugging on the chain to drag Light out of the bathroom after him. "Germany, perhaps," he says, as they exit the bedroom, making toward the elevator at the end of the long hall. "Maybe Sweden." He's always liked Scandinavia. "Maybe hell."

He drops the last one as casually as the rest, and if Light's steps stop for a moment and his face goes blank and he looks as if he's going to hit L or start yelling about not being Kira, then L pretends that he doesn't. It's gone in a flash, and then his steps start again and they're in the elevator in no time, smiling at one another like the world is their own private joke.

"I suppose I'll meet you there," Light says, checking his watch to see how much time they've wasted. "Hell, I mean. Not the other places, they're far too cold."

Light hates snow, L thinks. Light is an 18-year-old genius with beautiful hair and a charming smile and he hates snow and dislikes house pets and can recite all of Dante's _Inferno_ in the original Italian. He takes his tea without sugar and doesn't like orange flavor and thinks that drinking is irresponsible and makes his bed every morning with expert precision. He has never travelled outside of Japan and he says he doesn't want to. He is going to join the NPA after university. He'll probably be running it within ten years. He is brilliant.

He is also a mass murderer.

_This will all go away soon_, L thinks.

* * *

It's a bit ridiculous - but also, perhaps, inevitable - that model and teen magazine sensation, Misa Amane, is the one to catch Kira. Or, the third Kira, anyway. And _catch_ might not be the right word, but she's got a confession and she's got what they need to set up a trap for Kysokue Higuchi, so ultimately, it might as well be.

"This is quite brilliant work, Misa-san," L tells her, flatly, as he has Watari download the recording into the system.

He's not as shocked as he could be, seeing as she's already proven herself passably clever, but there's a certain forceful quality to Misa that's specific purpose seems to be to obscure anything in her resembling intellect. He's seen this kind of thing before, of course, especially from people that, all of their lives, have only been allowed to serve as decoration. Aiber calls that kind of thing Starlet Syndrome. Wedy calls it a personality disorder. L calls it a side effect of human existence.

Being a person is a terrible farce. Those who know how to navigate the farce are the most dangerous kinds of people, up to and including 90 pound pop idols. And, of course, idealistic teenage boys can also qualify.

"Thank you, Ryuzaki," Misa says, more quiet than usual.

She's absent, looks lost in thought, and L only wonders what she's thinking of for a moment before following her line of sight. Light is half across the room, as far as the chain will let him go, talking to his father and Matsuda about the plan, smiling easily and with all the appearance of perfect confidence in Kira's impending end.

"I'm sure Light-kun agrees," L says, less out of an urge to comfort Misa and more just to test her reaction.

She glances over abruptly, as if she'd forgotten he was there, then quickly pastes a loud smile across her face. "Yeah," she says brightly, eyes flicking back to her darling boyfriend, "I'm sure."

After a moment of forlorn silence that tries to present itself as bubbly happiness, L slides his packet of gummy candies over to her. She wrinkles her nose, but, after a few seconds of over-the-top deliberation, pops a few in her mouth. L doesn't feel bad for her, not really - she's certainly intelligent enough to realize that Light doesn't like her - but, well. He sympathizes, in his way.

"I'll get fat," Misa says, while continuing to eat his candy.

L shrugs. "Perhaps."

* * *

**two weeks later.**

* * *

His shoulder dislocates with a sickening shift under the skin, making his eyes roll back with that familiar thrill. Body twisting like a spineless thing, muscle contorting; it's glorious in its inhumanity.

They come a few minutes after the scheduled breakfast time, as is usual. The look on the first orderly's face is one part shock, one part resignation, because it's not as if he hasn't done this before - but that had just been for fun, a test, a little scare for the crowd. This is when all that practice pays off.

They'd put him in solitary again last week, locked him up tight in a white jacket in this white room, bright and smothering with its lack of shadows, of hiding places.

He hides in open space now, right in the direct line of sight from the door, and when Collins - it _is_ Collins, the complete cunt, the lovely sadist; they always send him because he's the roughest, and nobody in administration has a problem withprisoner no. 9012398 getting into a few accidents - when Collins comes in, he barely has time for a glance at B bending his limbs out of the straight-jacket before he's bowled over, clutching his ribs and yelping as B steps over him, foot slamming into his back with a sickening crunch.

The other one, Gonzalez, backs up into the hall instead of trying to keep B inside, which, all in all, is probably the better idea. His hand goes to the walkie-talkie at his waist, though, and so of course his wrist has to break. His grunt of pain echoes through the long hall, but the only other people in this wing are locked up in white rooms of their own. They're on camera, of course, but B will be along just fine before Fat Ralph, who has early morning watch, notices the disturbance.

Collins is getting up, so B jams the walkie into his head, shoving him back into the room and closing the door. Then he turns back to Gonzalez, who's shock has morphed into terror. Don't they teach these kiddies anything about the criminal element before sending them to tend to the prisoners? B thinks not.

There's a panic button on the wall and Gonzalez is eyeing it, so B kneels down in front of him, brushing the man's hair out of his eyes with suddenly gentle hands. _Horatio Gonzalez_. The letters, the little floating red letters are so close that he kids himself that he could reach out and touch them. Can't, though. Can't ever. The numbers, though - the numbers are even closer.

A pale hand cups Gonzalez's cheek, and he leans in, speaking softly. "Horatio," he says, and the look in the man's dark eyes rocks back to shock, because that is not on his name tag. "Shhh, Horatio. Keep quiet, yes? It's a quiet day. A lovely Sunday. Did you miss church this morning, Horatio?"

Horatio Gonzalez doesn't respond, just stares at him. B gets impatient and slaps him, and that gets a quick, terrified nod. And then, "Don't, don't - " he stammers.

"Sorry," B shrugs, almost sheepishly, hands stroking the stubble on dear Gonzalez's face, "have to."

"Don't you only kill peoples with your - with the initials - "

_B.B._, B thinks. He's read the file. Good boy.

"Oh that," B sighs, rolling his eyes. "Is that what I'm going to go down in the history books for? _Boring._ That was just to get his attention." He leans up slightly, making to stand. Horatio tries to stand, too, and B kicks his legs out from under him. An alarm goes off somewhere. _Prisoner on the loose_. B smirks.

"Whose?" Gonzalez asks, in his quivering voice.

B's smirk doesn't drop. He bends down slightly and says, "Tell the big man I said _hi_, will you?" And then he snaps Horatio Gonzalez's neck.

They'll have a nice funeral, B thinks. White. A pretty white church on a pretty white morning like this. People always dress death up in lovely layers.

He makes it out of the facility in under ten minutes, even though they've been in lockdown for eight. The concrete digs into his bare feet and sirens echo a familiar tune in his head. His crisp white patient's uniform is too obvious, so he strips in an alley and trades his clothes to a drunken homeless man. He yawns, thinks about getting a coffee and finding a newspaper, but he doesn't have time to waste.

Lawliet needs him and Japan is a long way from California.

* * *

**two weeks earlier.**

* * *

There is a riotous sea under his skin when Light touches him, and it never quite goes away no matter how much they keep touching, or fucking, or talking each other in circles with the same tired accusations and flimsy defenses. Round and round, and L doesn't know when it will stop, only that when it does, one of them will have to die.

"You'll kill me someday, won't you?" he whispers into Light's hair.

_This will all go away soon._

* * *

**tbc.**

* * *

**end notes**: In case it's not obvious (and it probably isn't because it's been a while) the last scene of this chapter is the same as the beginning of the very first scene of the very first chapter. Which is to say, we've come more or less full circle. But there are still a lot more circles left to get through, so.

There's a phrase in here that is not mine and does not belong to me, but I want to draw attention to it because it's awesome. "an ecstasy of unhappiness" is a quote from the incomparable Ms. Austen (from _Sense and Sensibility_, I think?) and it's one of my favorite descriptions of anything ever and I was kind of over to moon to have an opportunity to use it. So, there's that.

Stay tuned for next chapter, which may contain actual plot. ~gasp


	6. the ends

**warnings:** all of the usual, with a bonus of crazy, insane psychosis!

**notes:** Ladies and gentlemen, (probably mostly ladies), the moment you've been waiting for…

* * *

**chapter six - the ends.**

* * *

_"Human madness is oftentimes a cunning and most feline thing. When you think it fled, it may have but become transfigured into some still subtler form."_

- Herman Melville, _Moby Dick: or, the White Whale_.

* * *

The night drags on.

They've set Matsuda's interview on Sakura TV up for tomorrow and L is acting strange. Stranger than usual. He paces. He eats enough sweets to feed a small country. He goes over the plan once, twice, and again and again. He sprawls on their bed, legs spread out and head hanging off of the edge, back a crooked arch. He recites half of Homer's_ Iliad_ in rapid Greek, accent strange and fascinating to Light, who lies beside him, not even pretending to try to sleep any longer. He tells Light that he is beautiful. He says half-hearted, disjointed things, confessions and accusations, a veritable conglomeration of unspoken fears finally uttered in the quiet dawn.

"Imagine us standing in the street," he murmurs, curled onto his side and watching Light with wide, distant bug-eyes. "Just imagine us, standing there. Now imagine a car coming out of nowhere and killing us both instantly." He says it like it's nothing. "We should know better. We should know better than to stand around in the middle of the street, shouldn't we?"

"L, what - ?" Light asks, because he doesn't know what to say. He doesn't like when L is like this, pathetic and poetical and even more of a puzzle than usual.

"The car is coming, Light," he says. "You are the car."

He's either too out of it to notice or he really has dispensed with the honorifics completely, because Light is now just _Light_ to him. It's oddly freeing.

"This is ridiculous," Light says, falling onto his back and rolling his eyes, because if it really is the end of the world the way L is acting like it is, then they might as well not waste it. "You're being ridiculous. Let's fuck."

L stares at him for a long moment, then shrugs. "Okay."

At this point, Light wouldn't particularly mind if L were to climb on top of him and give it to him roughly, the way L likes to when his head goes missing and he needs something to focus on. He doesn't move, though, just lies there, apparently waiting for Light to do his worst, and so Light does.

L's head still hangs off of the bed and the ragged ends of his hair drag on the floor with every thrust, body bobbing like a buoy during a storm, a violent sea knocking them into one another. L's body is taut and he sweats slowly, eyes locked on the ceiling above of him, like his mind is somewhere completely separate. If it were possible to even entertain the notion of L thinking of anyone but him, Light might be slightly jealous at the moment. But it isn't possible, not unless -

Light grits his teeth, gives a particularly rough thrust. "Are you thinking about Kira?" he gasps into L's ear.

"Yes," L says, automatically. At least he's not lying, for once. "Are you?"

Light hates him, but also rather adores him in these horribly depressing ways, like a schoolgirl with a crush on some inscrutable professor twice her age. They're star-crossed, almost romantic at times - though now is not one of those times. "You're wrong about it, L," he grunts, because he's thrilling with need and the words won't come smoothly. "You're so wrong and you're going to be so fucking _ashamed_ when you find out how wrong you are. You better apologize. You better grovel."

"Is that what you want?" L breathes into his ear, finally actually looking at him. "For me to grovel?"

"Yes," Light groans, feeling like such an embarrassment to himself, but he wants, he wants, _he wants_.

"Light," L gasps, voice going breathy and unbelievably submissive. "Please," he begs.

A closer look shows the slightly impish smile on L's lips, a tease. Light suspects he's being made fun of, but it's hot enough that he can't quite bring himself to mind. "Bastard," he grits. L shifts his hips, delivering maddening pressure with just a slight adjustment, and Light comes gasping inside of him a few minutes later, jerking L off roughly with his other hand.

L's still smiling slightly, sated and hazy, a few moments later when everything fades down from the glistening thrill of orgasm. "Sleep," L tells him in a quiet, lulling voice, at once both very kind and very cruel. Light doesn't know what to think, doesn't know how to deal with any of this.

He only knows that he's not Kira, and he comforts himself with this thought as he strokes L's jagged shoulder blades and drifts into a loose sleep, both happy - in some twisted, unexplainable way - and scared out of his mind.

* * *

L knows it's a bad idea, but he's off the chain again, wrist bare and swinging unimpaired at his side.

Maybe it had been the taste of freedom last week, maybe it's just that tomorrow - given the plan, given Higuchi - things will most certainly change. Maybe he simply needs to think, and can't do as much in Light's presence, listening to his soft, even breaths rise and fall like a ticking clock, counting down to the end of the case.

The building is quiet at this time of night, world strung halfway to morning but still waiting. L slips quietly out onto one of the balconies, door opening and closing with a short click and the soft patter of his footsteps and nothing more. His feet are bare and the cold October air hits him in a rush and he's finally able to process things in the quiet chill - or he would be able, were he alone.

His first thought is Wedy, eyes catching on the wafting curls of cigarette smoke, but of course he's wrong. Misa looks cold in nothing but a dressing gown and slippers, leaning against the building like a cast-off china doll, choking quietly on her cigarette. If she'd been shocked to see L come out, she's covered it up by now, eyes lowered tiredly.

L stares at her for a long moment, not knowing what to think and, ultimately, deciding not to think anything in particular.

"New hobby?" he asks, nodding at the cigarette, voice softer than it needs to be.

"Wedy gave it to me," she says, sounding more calm than he's maybe ever heard her, no note of chipper excitement bubbling in the words. "Then she said I had skin like Barbara Stanwyck, but I don't know who that is." She coughs, seemingly yet to have mastered smoking, but trying again anyhow.

"Old-time western movie actress," L says, shifting his gaze away from her and back to the city skyline. "Wedy knows her noir."

Tokyo really is beautiful, in its way. Most cities L has been to are, although it often takes time to see it. He spends more than enough time watching the horizon through towering buildings, sees the world reflected in chrome and glass and heavy stone, his own eyes cut down the middle with the mirrored sky. He suspects his life story could be told in window views and balcony mornings, quiet moments like this one.

Neither of them speak for a long time, both in worlds completely separate from one another, only crossing over in odd places.

"Don't tell Light," Misa says, after a moment. She's not looking at him, just watches sun crawl on fragile legs into the sky. "He thinks smokers are disgusting."

She's not wearing any make-up and she looks different. Older, maybe, strange as that seems. There's a small, hidden part of L that wishes that she were brilliant, the mastermind behind the operation - the _real_ Kira. She could be the villain and Light could be her helpless puppet, manipulated into horrible acts instead of reveling in them, a victim. Someone L could save instead of someone he has to destroy. In truth, of course, it's more than likely the opposite of that, and Misa is the victim in this situation. Maybe if L were a better person, he'd try to save her.

Maybe if she were a better person, she wouldn't need saving in the first place.

"Misa-san," he says to her downcast eyes, because this doesn't feel like a time where he needs to dance around the subject, "don't you ever get tired of always putting Light before yourself?"

She looks up at him then. "No," she says abruptly, like there isn't any other possible answer. "You'd think I would, right?" She laughs, a half-hearted, tinkling laugh, like she's attempting the farce but can't quite commit to it, not on this kind of morning. "I'm not, though, not really. Light makes me… happy." She says it like _happy_ isn't really what she means, but she can't think of a better word for what she feels. "Even when he's not - even if he says things that - I can't help it. I want to keep that feeling."

She looks at L like she's waiting for confirmation, like she wants him to say that he understands. The awful part is that he rather does.

He leaves her on the balcony with her cigarette burning down between his small fingers, childlike hands shaking in the chill morning air.

* * *

He really should go back to the room, back to Light, but he finds himself heading to a different floor instead.

When L slumps in, disheveled in yesterday's clothes and sex-tousled hair and the fading pangs of the cool outdoor breeze, Watari is already exquisite in his uniform, hair neatly combed, mustache trimmed and glasses polished to a smooth shine. He smiles, softly and politely, when he sees L.

"Tea?" he asks, already pulling out another cup.

"Yes," L says, needlessly. He stands there, glancing around blankly, trying to remember if he's even been in Watari's room here before, and deciding it probably doesn't matter either way. There are so many rooms, so many buildings, so many useless memories of places neither of them will ever go again.

After the Kira case, L thinks, he'll wait years before coming back to Japan. He needs a change, a world as much separate from this one as he can possibly get. Maybe he'll see about cases in the tropics. He's always rather hated hot weather, but he thinks he could make himself used to it, if the need arises. He tells himself that it's not out of the desire to put an entire globe between Light and himself, but he knows better than anyone what a liar he is.

Watari nods to a chair and L climbs into it, curling up around himself for lack of anything better to do. Watari brings the pot over and sets the tea things on a small coffee table between them, placing a large bowl of sugar cubes in front of L, who immediately pops one into his mouth and crunches appreciatively.

"Now," Watari says, when everything is set up, familiar British lilt calming L in the way it always does, "I presume you want to talk about Light Yagami?"

"He's Kira," L says simply, sipping from his tea cup.

Watari nods. "It seems most likely."

L waits until he's finished swallowing to say, in his dullest, most unremarkable voice, "He's not bad in bed, either." Watari sips his tea, not reacting with anything more than another nod and a slightly patronizing smile, as if he knows exactly what reaction L is fishing for and isn't going to grant it to him. L rolls his eyes, clicking his spoon around his teacup. "Aren't you going to say something inspiring about justice and personal sacrifices?" he mumbles.

Watari dabs at his mouth with a napkin. "You have a job to do. You're doing it well. I don't believe that you need my assurances to have confidence in your methods, however unorthodox." He doesn't says _unorthodox_ like it's at all negative, and in fact, has always thought very highly of L's keen ability to manipulate his suspects using sex. L's not sure what that says about either of them, but suspects that it can't be good.

"I'm not doing it well," L counters.

Because, yes, Light has fallen for him. Light is set to sit, stay and roll over if L tells him to, but it's no use having a criminal mastermind in the palm of your hand if he has no memory of being a criminal mastermind, and what's worse, wanting to keep him there for as long as possible. In his palm, in his bed, in his body and against his lips.

His own affection is sickening and L would have it surgically removed if he could. Like a tumor.

"You care for him," Watari says, because he has never been one to dance around an issue, not even when said issue is one that could perhaps stand to be danced around. "It's not the end of the world. Despite your pretensions, you are not a machine - "

"Disappointing, isn't it?" L bites out, interrupting him. "You always wanted me to be." He immediately regrets it - Watari has done _so much_ for him; done everything, always - but he doesn't apologize.

Watari, for his part, is too used to L's shifting moods to be offended. "I wanted you to be brilliant," he corrects, eyes twinkling with a stern kindness. "You are brilliant." He sounds less like a proud father and more like the inventor that he is, reveling in the success of one of his creations.

He has every right to, though, L admits.

"I trust that your attachment won't interfere with the job?" Watari continues.

"Of course not."

Watari nods. They drink their tea. After a long, barely comfortable silence, he asks, "Then, is it fatherly advice that you're looking for?"

As if L is some child, some little boy who needs to ask - _ask_ - about love and romance and the birds and the bees. As if he couldn't write essays and theses on the chemical reactions in the brain required to create love or lust, adoration and obsession, and all of the terrible feelings in between. He _is_ brilliant and he resents the very notion that he is naive about anything.

"Thank you for the tea," he says flatly, standing from his chair and grabbing a few sugar cubes to take with him. Watari watches him go, not attempting to stop him or soften the blow. He, more than anyone, is used to L's fragile temper, his passive-aggression. L owes the man everything and, with this on his mind, stops in the doorway and says, without turning around, "If I die, do what needs to be done. Incarcerate him. Kill him, if necessary."

L can't see him, but he assumes that Watari nods. "And if you don't die?"

L does look at him then, not sure how to answer that. "If I don't die," he begins slowly, "then the game is still on. Don't do anything, in that case. Just let me play."

Watari nods again. Half his life, L thinks, is made up of nodding.

He thinks that's the end of it, but then, as Watari rises to begin cleaning up the tea things, he says the very last thing L want to hear. "Regarding Beyond," he starts.

"He ought to be killed," L says, cutting him off immediately.

"Yes," Watari agrees.

L knows if he gives the order then that's the end of it. A call will be made, someone will be dispatched, and that loose end will be permanently tied up, never to be unwound. He could bandage the last of his childhood wounds, finally put an end to the monster in his closet. But killing B strikes him with the same horrified revulsion that amputating one of his own limbs would. Even if it were infected, even if there was no saving it and it would probably ultimately kill him, he can't do it.

"I'll get back to you," is all he says. "For now, do nothing."

Watari, predictably, nods.

"Oh, and L?" he calls, when L is halfway through the door. It must be nearing morning now, and if Light's not awake yet, he will be. "You'll need a haircut soon."

L huffs a slight laugh, and it's his turn to nod. If he survives this, if he comes back from today alive, then maybe he'll look into personal grooming.

* * *

Light wakes up as L crawls back into bed, ticklish strands of hair brushing his chest and the echoing clink of the handcuffs being reattached ricocheting through his head. L's face is pressed to his sternum, cheek squished against his chest and his heavy eyes are the first thing Light sees when he blinks himself hazily into consciousness. He smells like tea.

"Morning," Light murmurs.

"Mmm," L returns, which is more of a greeting than he usually bothers with

Most mornings, L is already - or still - on his laptop by the time Light gets up, or sorting through print-outs, or even just spread out on his back, staring straight up as if he's trying to crack some invisible code written on the ceiling. Working, working, always working, the unstoppable supercomputer that is L's mind running at full capacity, even when most people are only just sitting down to their morning coffee. That he's cuddled up to Light like some affectionate pet on this day of all days is perhaps unusual, but not unexpected. Light feels as if the they'd both be better served to stay here for the foreseeable future, the case be damned.

Kira is welcome to the world, if only Light can keep L.

Of course, things don't actually work like that, and idealism and positive thinking only go so far. The rest they have to do by themselves. With that in mind, he drags L out of bed, chain wrapped up in his hand, and tugs him into the bathroom where they shower quickly and with little fuss, moving with and around each other as if it had been choreographed beforehand. L looks good naked and dripping wet, and on another day - one where the world wasn't about to possibly end - Light would fuck him against the slick tiled wall, but today is today, so they just wash and dress and go down to breakfast in the kitchen, where Matsuda and Mogi are already set up over a box of fresh donuts.

"I picked them up earlier," Matsuda says, grinning sheepishly, his nervousness blatant. "I thought we could all use a morale booster."

L's eyes go wide and comically pleased when he spies a jelly-filled, quickly going to pluck it up between two long, spindly fingers.

"Matsuda-san," he says, solemn tone clashing with the ridiculousness of the white powder that gets all over his lips, "you are an invaluable member of this team. Don't forget that." Maybe it's meant to be a joke, but L says it so seriously that Matsuda's jaw quivers a little as he blushes gratefully.

"I won't," he promises, too earnest for his own good. "Light-kun," he offers. "I know you're not fond of sweets, but," he starts, cutting off when Light leans over to pluck a glazed up with a napkin.

L's eyes jerk over to him, already so wide that they can't get wider, but Light sees the minor surprise anyway. "What?" he says. "I need the morale boost. Besides, I'm giving half to you."

L seems to find this an acceptable explanation, because he takes the rather large piece that Light rips off for him and shoves it his mouth without pause and Light notes, not for the first time, that L eats even more when he's stressed. If he didn't have such a severely fucked-up metabolism - and he must have some kind of thyroid problem, because otherwise there's no possible way he could eat so much and still remain so bone-ragged thin - then he'd probably gain and lose weight at fluctuating degrees, depending on the state of his cases. It's actually quite unhealthy, but then most things about L are. Originally, Light had even entertained that he was a relatively rare example of male bulimia, but after spending several months with him at every waking moment, he's come to the conclusion that L's body just works in some suitably inhuman way that, regardless of his diet, makes him look as if he's consistently suffering from some sort of wasting disease.

Light watches him polish off several more donuts with vague, fascinated disgust, waiting for Matsuda and Mogi to move into the main room before grabbing him by the wrist. "You're nervous," he says.

"I have reason," L replies, dropping the current donut as if he's suddenly not hungry any more. His legs curl up, knees hitting under his chin, as if he means to wrap himself up and disappear. "If things go as planned, we're going to catch a Kira tonight."

"_The_ Kira, maybe," Light says, even if he doesn't actually believe that Higuchi is the original mastermind behind the operation. Still, the real Kira might try to come to his aid, or maybe Higuchi will give something up if they question him. Anything could happen tonight. "Maybe," he repeats, just to get a taste of the possibilities, "maybe for once in you life you're wrong about something."

L looks at him with blank eyes, eyes that can't see _maybe_.

"I'm not."

And that should be the end of it, shouldn't it? Light is so much better than this, could have so much better than this - could have anybody, really. There's a model upstairs that spends most of her waking life throwing herself at him, girls, and probably boys, back at university that would sell all of their worldly possessions for even a chance with him. But Light has always been so much better than them, better than everything, better than love and hate and all of those petty abstractions that people get so ridiculous about.

He's better than this man curled up on a chair before him, a pathetic excuse for justice, drained and frail and wrong, wrong, _wrong_. He's better than this feeling in the pit of his stomach, clawing its way up through his chest like a thing with teeth and jaws and a horrible severity of emotion. _Better_, he thinks - knows.

Despite that, his hands go out to take L's and he's suddenly leaning forward, looking into those dead eyes that he's become so unreasonably fond of, and trying not to beg L to trust him. He swallows it back, says instead, "No matter what happens - " and is almost glad when L cuts him off because he knows how cliche and _weak_ he's being.

"What are you going to say, Light?" L snaps, tone still flat but angry in a way that Light doesn't think he deserves, given how much he's _given_ L. "Something sweeping and romantic? A promise of everlasting love? That you'll meet me in Paris when this is all over." He huffs a laugh, so biting, the way he gets when things aren't going his way. "Rendezvous on the Eiffel Tower. I'll bring flowers, you'll wear a red dress. It'll be just like those films that put us both to sleep."

He's still rolling his eyes petulantly - stupid, _stupid_ man - when Light grabs him by the face with both hands, makes him stop talking and _listen_.

"Shut-up," he snaps. _Shut-up, shut-up, shut-up_. Light has given him everything and so L just needs to shut-up. "You know what I'm going to say. I - "

L doesn't shut-up. In fact, he says two of the worst things he could possibly say. "It doesn't matter," is the first. He's curling even further into his chair now. "You're Kira," is the second.

And he's not. He's not, he's not, _he's not_. And even if he is - he's not - but if by some strange twist of fate he is - god, L would just be fucking thrilled by that, wouldn't he? - then what does it even matter? L straight-out said that he and Kira are practically the same, serve more or less the same function, and even if Light doesn't truly believe that - because L is better, so much better - it doesn't matter, because L does. L thinks about Kira all the time, L thinks about him when Light is fucking him and when he is fucking Light and _what does it matter?_

No, no, that's -

"I don't want to be," he says, abruptly, but he sounds so desperate and unsure that he doesn't think that either of them believe it.

L sighs, finally unfurling to set his feet down on the floor, toes wiggling idly. He seems to remember that he's the adult here and that perhaps he should act like it once in a while, because he leans forward to brush Light's hair out of his eyes, expression halfway between fond and disappointed.

"We'll know more after tonight," he says. "Maybe I am wrong, maybe you're completely innocent. I doubt it, but there's always a possibility, a margin for error." His hand slips away as easily as it had come, a wisp of bone and tendon and thin white skin. His voice is low and pathetically comforting. "Whatever you want to say, tell me tomorrow."

* * *

Light is smiling, like this is a field trip, a day out, a little on-the-job experience for his portfolio. He stares out of the open door, watching the city below them fade by in a blur of bright lights and distant sounds, sirens cutting loudly into the usual din of Tokyo's nightlife as they chase Higuchi down through the relatively clear air traffic.

"Where did you learn to fly a helicopter?" he asks, turning that smile on L, and L wonders if maybe, just maybe, this isn't the end. Maybe his calculations really have been off, maybe he's been compromised, maybe he's just no good anymore. Maybe Light is just the victim of some horrible plot and they will live happily ever after and ride off into the sunset and actually go to Paris or whatever cliche place people go to when they're mad for each other.

"Over the English countryside," L says, not looking at him. It does, after all, take a bit a minor concentration to keep from crashing into errant skyscrapers. "When I was fourteen."

Light laughs, like this is some sort of brilliant adventure. He looks the way someone might look if they were happy. "That's ridiculous," he says.

"Yes," L agrees, and moves to land on the street below, a veritable army of police cars already congregated around Higuchi. Watari's got his gun ready and Light's brow goes hard, face arranged in an expression of genuine resolve.

_Maybe_, L thinks.

* * *

Light touches the notebook, curiously, and something rocks inside of him and it's sort of like -

Oh. _Oh._

He remembers.

Everything shifts sharply into place and then all of those loose ends begin making knots, wrapping themselves up in a web of understanding, spelling out the plans of the Gods, a map of the universe behind his eyes, and he _remembers_. It terrifies him for a moment, is everything he's been fighting with such valiant determination, but something tilts the axis of the world and the planet begins spinning differently and then it all makes sense. The who and the what and the where all return in a flash, but the _why_ reveals itself more slowly, mounting in a glorious cacophony that rises in up in him like a mountain, like a bridge to the sky.

He is justice.

It's simple. It's a thousand names and a thousand dead and hand-cramps and late nights and complex plans and never stopping, never ever stopping to take a breath - but it's simple, really. He's justice.

Without that, he's just a boy with a notebook and too much time on his hands, and maybe if he were anyone else, if he were less of a person - one of the pointless, mindless millions who drone through their daily lives with no concerns beyond what's for lunch and the cute girl in their class and whether they'll get hired at this firm or that company - maybe then this would all be the wrong thing. But he _is_ justice, it embodies him, lives in his eyes and his clothes and his fingers and his hair that L like so much and -

And L.

L_._

Everything stops for a moment, just freezes, his mind treating him to a snow globe view of the last few months - the hands and the lips and the eyes, L's back a fractured arch against the crisp, clean bedsheets, hands scrabbling desperately, hair a mess, eyes shaded black with a sick sort of urgency, gasping desperately as he - as Light -

Light didn't. No, Light _wouldn't_.

It's a pathetic animal impulse, rutting and grunting, rolling in each other's sweat and spit and semen, clawing each other close. People do it all the time, but people are _disgusting_, sick animals, too dumb to resist their hormones, letting a chemical reaction of the body _control_ them, rule their actions, blot out their mind, and L - L _did that to him_.

L is worse than the protector of murderers and rapists and scum, he _is_ one. He's defiled a God, dragged Light down with him, into his dirty pale hands and long thighs and _fucking hell_ - it's rising in him, swirling in his stomach, and he might vomit, he might actually vomit and fuck that's not going to be suspicious or anything, throwing up as soon as he touches the Death Note, great fucking plan, and this is L's fault, _L's fault_.

He breathes in deep, getting a hold on himself, shoving the sickness down and planting the mask straight across his face, latching it to the skin, becoming Light Yagami, the 18-year-old university student who wants nothing more than to capture Kira and bring him to justice. Yes, yes, he can do this. Of course he can do this.

He is justice.

"Light, are you alright?" L asks, staring at him with those wide eyes, deformed little body curled up, so ugly, _ugly_.

It makes Light sick just to look at him, that horrible wave of nausea shifting through his belly again, low down, a burning sort of feeling like he needs to pin L down and - _no_. No. "Fine," he says, pasting on the practiced smile, and he should win a fucking award for this, the way he sells it, L nodding quickly and taking back the notebook.

Higuchi is yelling and the police are running around in a panic, dodging around Rem like she's about to go on some sort of rampage - funny how terrified they are of something so completely useless - and Light doesn't have time for L right now, so he shoves it all down, hiding it in all of those caves he's built just for occasions such as this, and does what needs to be done. The watch comes open easily and Higuchi goes down easily, falling and yelling, a disgrace even in his last few moments. Rem couldn't have given the notebook to a more unworthy person, but it doesn't matter now.

It's back, everything's back to how it should be and -

The chain clinks as Light shifts and the caves crack open and he's flooding, _just flooding_, doesn't have enough room in his mind to hold all of the thoughts that rush to a forefront. There's a room, and a bed, and in the room and on that bed L had crawled on top of him, had pressed so close and sunk down deep and given him something that he hadn't wanted, that he couldn't have wanted, couldn't, couldn't -

_"Sometimes I want to pretend that the only thing that's ever happened to me is you."_

Liar.

_"You'll kill me someday, won't you?"_

Yes. Yesyesyes.

_"We do plenty of wrong things for justice, Light."_

Higuchi is still yelling and he wants to shut it off, just wants to shut down his brain for a moment, just -

_"I will live and die as a force of justice, I will serve my purpose and solve crimes and put criminals away. I will save the people that I can, and I will kill, and torture, and lie, and manipulate, and fuck when I have to. That's just my job."_

Stop, stop, stop. He wants it to stop.

And, it does.

The second hand ticks by and Higuchi stops yelling and the mass panic rolls into slow motion, and then everything fades out, like he's moved into a separate world, one that locks sharply on L's voice when he says, "Are you sure you're alright? You look pale," flatly, without a single emotion. Like he hasn't just discovered Kira's murder weapon, like Kira isn't _sitting right next to him_, even though L of course knows that he is.

Light turns to look at him but he can't speak, he can't breath, he can't -

And he thinks, _oh god, he's not ugly, he's not ugly at all_ at the same time as he thinks _how did this happen?_ He thinks of L bloody and helpless and squirming underneath him, pinned down, trying to get away but unable - unable to do anything but lie there and let Light have him, a sacrifice offered up to a new God, a casualty of war. He thinks of L's neck, his long throat and his bony elbows and the way his skin is so soft and pliable when it should be brittle and thin, winter-tree limbs hanging every which way, a mess of a man.

Light doesn't know his name, but unlike every other person on this earth, his name doesn't seem important. It's an afterthought, one that comes long after his body, and his hair and cock and thick, black eyes. Light is going to kill him and Light is going to fuck him and Light is going to do it all with his own hands, going to tear him apart with fingers that have only written names, because L is not ugly and L is not small and L is not like the rest of them, not really.

L is like him. L is his.

Nothing has changed, and so has everything.

* * *

_Maybe_, L had thought, before.

Now there is a small black notebook on the table in front of him and a giant grey mass of decay and dull glances who calls herself Rem floating at his shoulder. There's a light rain over Tokyo today and Matsuda leans his chin on his palm and watches the outdoor camera views, looking through a window that isn't there. Mogi is getting Aizawa and Ide up to date on the case. Misa is packing her things, preparing to move back into her old apartment. Aiber and Wedy are on one of the balconies, smoking in the rain. Aiber keeps touching her shoulder and Wedy keeps brushing him off with a slow smile. Watari is in the control room. There have been no more calls from B in the last week.

Light is standing a few feet away, neat shadow darkening the ground behind him as the bare fluorescents shine down, casting his normally glowing face in a dull, cold light. The chain still connects them, but Light is standing as far away as possible. He smiles at L, but his eyes keep shifting to the table. The Death Note lies there, a weapon of mass destruction in a plain binding and rigid rules.

And now L thinks, _maybe not._

He's read all of the rules multiple times, scanned every page, has had Watari run every test on it that their in-house lab can manage and found nothing -nothing to explain how it is what it is or does what it does. They don't even know if it actually works or if this is just some plant, some cheesy prop that Kira had left behind in order to throw them off of his trail. L would be convinced of that, in fact, were it not for Rem. Gigantic, hulking monsters tend to sell things a bit better than edgy font and gothically stylized designs.

The whole thing reeks of an outdated sort of horror, far more Lovecraft than Conan Doyle, and L certainly knows which he prefers.

The chief comes in, slipping his phone into his pocket. He's been sorting things out with Interpol all night and morning and he looks even more haggard than usual, jaw unshaved and stray lines of grey obvious in his hair. His presence sends the room into a tense silence and L doesn't have to turn around to tell who they're all looking at, and what.

He sighs, picking the Death Note up between his thumb and forefinger, holding it out in front of him like some minorly interesting specimen that he doesn't much want to touch. The room gets tenser.

L rolls his eyes because this is already dull. "It appears Lord Lytton was right," he says. "The pen is indeed mightier than the sword."

Light is the only one who laughs, and not just because he is likely the only person in the room who understands who he is referencing. The quote doesn't translate that well in Japanese and, that aside, no one's in a particularly jovial mood. Light's quiet chuckle dies off quickly and he looks gravely at his hands, so solemn, so _perfect_, an impeccable actor. It's all perfect, too perfect, and L knows that everything is lost now.

He doesn't know how and he doesn't know when, but Light isn't there anymore. Kira is home and Kira, even with his eyes downcast and his brow quirked serious, is _happy_.

"I think we should light it on fire," L says, dropping the Death Note back on to the table.

This is, predictably, met with an even more reproachful reaction than his first joke. Deafening silence, and then -

"Ryzuaki, you can't be serious - "

"You saw the rule, you saw what will happen if anything happens to the Death Note - "

"What are you even - Light, what is he even talking about?"

Aizawa's running a frustrated hand through his afro and Ide has jumped out of his chair with the force of this new indignity and Matsuda's up and running around in a panic, headed straight for Light as if he's the only one who can handle this situation - savior as always. Even Mogi looks quietly affronted. The chief's grey patches seem to have gone grayer in the last few seconds. The Shinigami's face is blank as ever, but it still manages to look slightly annoyed by the commotion.

L sits in his chair, waiting for things the die down, because he's gotten what he was looking for. For all the loud and various forms of panic displayed by the members of the investigation team, none are so telling as the momentary terrified widening of Light's eyes, shoved down a second later, but not before L's mind captured the instant, filing it away somewhere in the cavernous libraries of information is his mind. Light is a brilliant actor, but even he cannot control the involuntary actions of the body.

L waits for the soft clearing of the throat that sends the whole room immediately quiet as Light steps forward, assuming his usual position as representative of the sane and reasonable public against L's arsenal of horrifying and offensive theories and suggestions.

"Ryuzaki," he says, sounding so perfectly, flawlessly concerned that L _knows_ it's not real, "what do you mean?"

There's a sharp, narrowed bend to the words, hidden behind the familiar long-suffering politeness.

L swivels his chair, head tipping to the side. "I mean that Wedy probably has a lighter and - "

"No, I mean, you read the rules, right?" Light asks, walking forward; the champion of the people, approaching the lion's den. "There's one that says that if any harm comes to the Death Note then everyone who's touched it will die. That's everyone on the investigation team, yourself included, not to mention an unlimited number of people who could have possibly come into contact with it before now."

He's giving L that soulful, imploring look, very much in the vein of, _Don't you have any decency at all?_ Funny, but a day ago that look had come off more like, _I know you're better than this_. What a difference - undetectable, to the untrained eye, but still, a _difference_ - a few hours and a little black book can make.

"Yes, I did see that rule," L says. "I have a theory."

"A theory," Light repeats, a note of mounting annoyance in his voice.

"Yes."

The taskforce is watching them, a hushed audience to the spectacle, the always inevitable show-down. Hero vs. villain. It says something for either Kira's manipulative abilities or else L's own failing convictions that he has, of late, been unsure of which of them is which.

"And?" Light asks, arms crossing regally across his chest.

"And," L says, wishing he had something to chew on, to busy his hands with, but knowing that Watari's got too much to do at the moment to be able to see to his every odd dietary whim, "I believe that that rule is a fake."

This, if possible, results in an every larger commotion than the previous announcement. His popularity - questionable as it's always been - is flagging quickly. Somehow or another, L isn't overly bothered by this.

"A fake rule?" Aizawa repeats, arms going up in a mad flail or incomprehension. "Why would there be a fake rule? Shinigami," he says, turning to Rem, "is there a fake rule?" The thing doesn't respond, just floats there looking rather hangdog. L appreciates that it, at least, isn't shouting. "Hey!" Aizawa snaps, trying to get its attention, apparently unperturbed by its status as a _god_. Of death, maybe, but a god nonetheless, and that surely means something.

"I also have a theory about another rule," L says, plucking at his lip.

Light's expression grows tighter. "Let me guess - "

"The 13 day rule is also likely faked," he continues, paying little heed to the rest of the team. They make their protestations and denials, expressing their disapproval as loudly as possible, but L is only paying attention to one person's reactions; the rest is just white noise, filtered out by the immensity of its unimportance.

Light's teeth grit into a irritated smile. "Convenient."

"Isn't it?"

It's contrived, is what it is. This whole thing, the way it works out perfectly in Light's favor - as things always seem to do - feels more like a scripted drama than a natural occurrence of chance. It's a game, and Kira has been playing with pieces that L hadn't even known about. It makes sense that he would take precautions, given the inevitability of L eventually discovering the Death Note, sniffing out the secret weapon. It's insurance, and it's probably been in place for months, stage all set up for the performance. And the show is on now.

"Well, why can't we test that one?" Matsuda asks, inoffensive only in his cluelessness. "At least that way none of _us_ will die."

"_Matsuda!_" The chief snaps, ever the paragon of morality. Just like his son.

"What? I mean - I'm just saying." Matsuda slinks back into his chair, hand going sheepishly to scratch at the back his head and Soichiro turns his stern disapproval on L.

"You can't still suspect my son, Ryuzaki," he says, and at that moment L would very like to tell him about the time that Light had held him to the wall, face forward, hand on the back of his neck and body pressed down on him like a weight, digging purple bruises into his skin and whispering with hot breath into his ear about how _pretty_ L looked like that.

_"Is it because you can't see my face?" _L had asked after, that ever-useful bend of vulnerability evoked in his voice, just another strategy, and a successful one at that. Light's tone had faltered, hand stroking his shoulder, when he'd said, _"Yeah, probably."_

He doesn't recite that particular scene for the team, though, despite how amusing the look on Light's face would surely prove to be. He just tilts his head, playing dull instead of clever, and says, "Can't I?"

Because he is L and he is, with the arguable exception of Kira himself, the most powerful man in the world. If he chose, he could have all of them incarcerated and facing charges in under ten minutes for failing to cooperate with an investigation regarding international security. Interpol wouldn't help him, of course, but they wouldn't stop him, either. They never stop him. If he were a different man - or maybe the same man he is now, only with different interests - he could have the world flipped on its head in under six months, could do or change or fix or break _anything_. He is 24 years old and he is raw power, a man who is a letter who is the law.

The sentiment, though not specific, hangs heavy in he air around him, and it's clear that everyone in the room feels it. Even Light. He lets it settle there, taut and uncomfortable, a brief nod to what he _could_ do, if he wanted to, before he sighs uninterestedly and stands straight up from his chair.

"I suppose, given the evidence, it would be highly unethical for me to hold you any longer, wouldn't it, Light-kun?" he asks, and there's a palpable, if not audible, breath let out by the team at large. L doesn't actually have any interest in directly antagonizing them at this point, now that they've served most all of the functions they possibly could for him. He just wants to make it understood that he has the undeniable option to.

Light eyes him steadily. "That's right."

"Come along, then." L doesn't glance at him, just shuffles off toward the elevator. "The key to the handcuff chain is up in our room."

It's still funny to think of _them_ having a room, though it's been months now. L and Kira, bunking together. L's slept with many people, but he's lived with very few, and those he has - save Watari, of course - have never parted from him on good terms. Come to think of it, he doesn't know that he's ever parted from anyone on good terms, given that he's either leaving criminals behind bars or police officers and government officials upstaged in the wake of his prowess. He doubts anyone on the Kira taskforce will remember him fondly when this is over.

If this is ever over. It will have to be at some point, he knows. Maybe some point soon.

Light, given no other option, follows him to the elevator, and L lets a heavy pause weigh them all down before mumbling, "We'll discuss this in more detail later. For now, continue your correspondence with Interpol and inform me of any updates on the current situation." He puts his finger out, but pauses over the button for their floor, flicking his eyes towards the back of the room. "Oh, and Matsuda? I'm putting you in charge of the Death Note in my absence. Please watch over it carefully."

It's very much worth any possible risks to the investigation this might pose to see Light's eyes go wide and his throat spasm a bit, presumably choking back whatever vehement protest he wants to make. And it's obvious then, more obvious than Kira should probably be, how attached to the thing he is. Just a little black notebook.

L jabs the button and as the doors to the elevator close, he can't help his chipper, if slightly _schadenfreude_-based amusement at the exchange that echoes after them.

"Everyone keep Matsuda out of reach of writing utensils," Aizawa says, only partly sounding like he's joking.

"Hey, you guys know I'd never write anyone's name down!"

"Not on purpose, but you're always accidentally recording your case notes on important documents."

"That was one time!"

* * *

The key is not upstairs and they both know that the key is not upstairs. L has pulled it out of nowhere enough times that he's sure Light has noticed. He notices everything, the beautiful mind, and so L is prepared for questions and accusations, all of the usual. But he shouldn't be, he realizes quickly, because this Light is not the Light he is used to. He's gone from wild and boyishly determined to stark and calculating, no longer secure enough in his innocence to risk acting even slightly suspicious. And that's where he's faltering, where he's always faltered. The overcompensation, the need to plot and act and even kill to a tee, perfect even in his criminality.

There is always an aura of perfection to Light, of course, and he is never unstudied or artless, but something is still different now. It's not a fact so much as a feeling, and deplorable as it may be, L does most of his best work on feelings, that sick strangling in the gut that tells him that _this_ is his man - or woman or child or group. He is methodical in his intuitions, but they still rule him in most cases. There are some things that logic cannot account for. Things like Death Notes and Shinigami and the way that Light looks at him sometimes, in the coolest hours of the morning when their feet knock against each other and bright glow of L's laptop screen is upstaged by the warm puff of Light's breath, and -

And L has to let this go.

The past few months are gone and the boy he spent them with isn't going to come back - he's 90% sure, anyway - and if he ever does, L vows to have enough evidence by then to convict him, anyway. Behind bars with all the rest of them, or else dead and forgotten.

So, he lets it go.

Now what does he do?

"What is this about?" Light asks, voice trying to be kind but not quite managing. He tugs L closer with the chain, probably a measured gesture to inspire familiarity, but L commits to not letting it work. "You can't still seriously think that I'm - "

"Maybe I just don't want you to leave."

L's not sure when he decides to say it, but he does. He can't continue to outright accuse Light, not if he wants to stay alive long enough to catch him up. He needs to gather evidence and in order to get evidence, he needs Light to act. Unless he's already acted? Higuchi - that's something. How did he kill Higuchi? He couldn't have had Misa do it, as she was stuck here and still, presumably, has no memory of being Kira, unless Light has somehow managed to restore it to her without them even coming in contact with each other. But then how does one return memory, anyway? How did Light do it? Did the Shinigami do it for him or did it just happen automatically when he touched the Death Note? Maybe when Higuchi died, the ownership reverted to Light - but no, no, someone had to kill Higuchi and that person could only be Light.

And so even if it's the most blatant lie he could possibly tell, he needs to keep up appearances just a little longer. And then -

He will do his job.

They go through the familiar routine like automatons. Light runs a careful hand up L's neck and through his hair, turning him around to meet his eyes, but the movements are stilted, virgin-awkward, like they haven't done this dozens of times. Light's inflection is even slightly off when he says, "I'm not - I'm not going anywhere. I'll stay at headquarters. I'll stay. Don't worry."

He looks down at L with those soulful eyes of his and it's really quite nauseating from this distance. A day ago, this had meant something inexpressible, had opened up wells in L's mind from which contradicting, twisting thoughts had flown like water, infecting every bit of him. Spreading like a disease. Light is the disease and Kira, it seems, is the cure.

L feels nothing now. He is, to take a page from the book of cliches that he so despises, _empty_. He is cured.

"And don't do anything _stupid_ because of me," Light says, which to him just sounds like, _The harder you peruse me as a suspect, the sooner you will die_. And so L answers in kind.

"I'm sorry, Light-kun, but it's far too late for that." He pulls the key from his pocket then, not bothering to try to conceal it. It doesn't matter anymore. He unlocks the cuffs with two sharp clicks, then turns away, going over to stare at the bed. The sheets are neat and tucked-in at the edges, the way Light always does them up. It's a bit jarring to realize that Light isn't going to do that anymore. "You should sleep. Watari's set up a bedroom for you on the floor above this one."

There are creases in the sheets, and he wants to smooth them out, but doesn't.

"What are you going to do?" Light asks, folding up the chain with a series of tinny clinks and setting it neatly on the bed, coming unsettlingly close to L as he does.

L doesn't look at him. "I think I could use some rest, too."

He thinks Light waits there for some kind of tearful goodbye or reaction of the like, but doesn't get one and, shortly after, leaves, fading footsteps swallowed by the carpeting. L stares at the bed. He means to climb into it, but he just stays standing there, tracing the creases with his eyes and trying to decide how to take down Light Yagami.

* * *

The first thing Light has to do is figure out how much time he has. L has no proof and he isn't going to get proof, but he still poses a threat and Light is going to have to get rid of him before he embarks on a new strategy. He doesn't seem to have noticed anything different about Light yet, and so that buys him a bit of time.

A week, he'll say. Light will give himself a week to get it all out of his system, to - if he wants to use a crass saying - play with his food before he kills it. Give L one last thrill, or even a few more, before he puts him down. Today is October 29th, so if he hasn't killed L by November 5th, he'll do it that day. He pencils the date neatly into his mind, adding it to his inner-schedule. It feels very distant at the moment, almost mundane, like a dentist appointment or an errand he's been meaning to run. It's all about scheduling, about keeping his affairs in order.

With the when taken care of, that brings up the question of the _how_. Light doesn't think he'd ever fully appreciated the convenience of the Death Note, but now that he's considering other methods of judgement, it strikes him with full force and he begins measuring out the practicalities. It's all well and good to think about fucking L into an early grave - a hand around his throat, a pillow to his face, just a bit of pressure and that frail body of his could come apart - but the reality of actually killing someone in person is a bit more difficult. It's not that he doubts his resolve, is in fact rather… excited by the prospect, it's just much more complex to cover up. He'd need an alibi, he'd need to remove his fingerprints and, of course, if there's evidence of sexual activity immediately prior to the death, there would naturally be a suspicion of rape.

The whole thing is just very messy. The problem is that there is a raw and gnawing hunger deep in Light that craves messy like it does nothing else. L's name is one thing and he'll have Misa get it just for insurance, but it means very little to Light now, which is a startling contrast to before. It's the body that he sees breaking when he closes his eyes, and he doesn't think it will truly feel like a victory if he doesn't get to realize that vision.

And that aside, killing L with the Death Note feels oddly wrong. Too impersonal. Too common. L may be a criminal for defying Kira the way he does, but he's anything but common. He should have a death worthy of a man of his level.

Maybe he could write _that_ in the Death Note. Give him a proper send off. Make him do whatever Light wants before he dies. _Anything. _The idea sparkles where is forms in his mind and Light can't let it go.

Still, he needs the name. He needs Misa. Or Rem, perhaps, but that's not important at the moment. He has a week. The question he needs to ask himself right now is, what is he going to do with this week?

* * *

L's door isn't locked and it's as easy as blinking to get into the room. Unimpeded movement is a curious freedom that Light still isn't used to after being deprived of it for months on end, but he'd moved easily through the halls, navigating the building as if he owns it. L hasn't been seen downstairs and Light had been expecting to find him hunched over his screen, agonizing and obsessing, playing voyeur as usual. Finding him sprawled across the bed and very much asleep is a pleasant surprise, though one that lends a different angle to the situation when he leans in to press his lips to L's jaw, fingers skirting the edges of his shirt.

His skin is warm and he wakes with an odd start the way he always does, jerking into consciousness rather than entering it slowly, wide eyes scrambling and body going rigid against Light's. He breathes out in a huff, turning around and shoving his palm out in an upward thrust, hitting Light in the jaw.

"Fuck!"

Light catches himself on the edge of the bed, pain morphing into a thick pulse of rage as he dodges out of L's reach.

L sits up, matted hair following behind him to fall flatly across his eyes. "Sorry," he says, without a bit of inflection. He looks at Light with something sharply ungenerous in his eyes, as if his being here is a violation rather than a return to the norm. Light doesn't like it.

"I just came up to check on you," he says, sitting up and rubbing at his chin.

"With your lips?" L says, pulling his legs up to his chest. Even curled into the fetal position, he still looks oddly calm and cold, as if he's the one who had caught Light asleep - as is usual - and not the other way around.

"You've never minded before."

L doesn't respond to that and Light takes it as a cue to move closer, hand coming up to catch L's jaw in a slightly rough grip - an eye for an eye, after all - thumb stroking along the bottom of his lips. The way a lover might. Heh, _lover_. It's ridiculous, but it's also true, and made even more ridiculous by that fact.

Light thinks about snapping his neck then and there and it sends a pulse of something through his stomach. Fantasy is not reality, though, and even if the bones snap like twigs in his mind, in truth the human body is actually rather durable. More than that, as guarded as he is now, L would probably fight back tooth and nail, and in criminal investigations defensive wounds often provide definitive evidence. Light is not some common brute and he won't sink to the level of struggling for his victory. It will come to him, in time.

A week, he tells himself. Just a week.

So instead of killing L, he kisses him, a soft pressure of the lips to drag him in. L is warm and soft with sleep and Light would just sink into him if -

L pulls away, almost absently, and glances out the window and into the black sky and bright lights of the city. "What time is it?"

"Night," Light says, settling back. "Is something wrong?"

L isn't acting different, not really, but there's something off in him. A change, as if everything has skipped a beat and they've gone from living on the same wavelength to being on completely different pages, a world away from one another. It's only as a matter of course, maybe, but it's still odd. L feels far away and Light wants him close, a solid presence to latch onto.

"What time of night?" L says, not answering the question.

Light flicks his hair out of his eyes. "I don't know. Late. Most everyone's gone home." L's gaze shifts quickly to him at that. "Just for the night."

The chain still lies folded on he bed where he had left it, where L had fallen asleep a few inches from it on top of the blankets. It glints in the light from skyscrapers, cutting a glare across the dark room. Light can't quite help himself and reaches out to pick it up, the familiar sound shooting through him like a sense memory, but even though it's only been a day since he's gotten his memory back, all of that feels very distant. Like a dream he'd had once.

_Love_, he'd told himself. He supposes that without the Death Note he'd had no particular purpose, no meaning to his life, and it seems that people have a habit of tricking themselves into finding meaning in other people and the sense of infatuation that can sometimes flood them. Misa is a prime example. Light hates to compare himself to her in any possible way, but in another life -

An alternate universe. That is his alternate universe, a world, a _him_ without the Death Note makes him weak and confused and susceptible to manipulation. The upside is that L's manipulated himself in the bargain, fallen for that boy without a notebook and is thus waiting there on the ground for the real Light.

It briefly strikes him that L might not feel the same about him now, but - no, no that's impossible. With the Death Note he is better and stronger and smarter in every way. Who would choose a child over a God? Not anyone of L's intelligence, surely, and anyway, it's not as if he'll be given time to deliberate over it. One week is all they have together. Light is going to make it count.

Perhaps he should be kind, perhaps he should lure L in with soft words and false promises, but L is a genius - despite his many flaws - and it doesn't take one to know what Light wants, so instead of beating around that proverbial bush, he just leans in to him, meeting those wide, deer-in-the-headlights eyes and says, "Take your clothes off."

* * *

**one week later.**

* * *

Even when he hasn't yet said anything, everything about Mello has a tendency to be very loud. The look on his face as Roger finishes off his speech with a thick cough and an apology is a familiar precursor to the oncoming storm. Roger coughs again, just to put it off. It rather fails to work.

"What do you mean _'gone?'_" he demands, hands slamming down on the desk and sending the pens ratting. "He can't be gone. He's got a fucking mass murderer to catch. Where did he go?"

His hair slopes down, framing his face in thick gold and making him look younger than he is, even as his voice gets louder with every word. If Roger hadn't already lived through plenty of Mello's tantrums, he might actually be slightly intimidated now, but it's a _boy who cried wolf_ situation. If you make a scene at every little thing - bad test score, scraped knee, not enough chocolate milk - when the time comes that an event is actually worth the dramatics, it fails to make an impression.

Roger coughs into his handkerchief again. "Language, Mello."

He glances at Near, who's reaction - or lack thereof - is also unsurprising. After over fifteen years of this, Roger is used to dealing with unbalanced geniuses.

Quillish had said once that if Mello and Near were to morph into one person, they would be more capable than even L himself, a sort of super-detective. At the time, Roger had just laughed and said how morbid a thought it was, but now he's entertaining it as very good sense.

"He's not dead," Mello insists, a frantic sort of desperation skirting the edges of his voice.

"No," Roger says," no, it's not confirmed." But he knows very well that it's clear what he believes. He'd said it was a bad idea from the start, going straight out and revealing himself to Kira, that it couldn't end well. Not to L directly, of course, but he'd conveyed the sentiment through Quillish. In typical fashion, his advice had been ignored.

"He can't be dead." Mello is shaking his head. "That's not - that can't happen. Not to L."

The soft sound of cardboard puzzle pieces clicking into place echos familiarly throughout the room. "What do you think we're being trained for?" Near asks the floor, lolling on his stomach as usual. "It's a dangerous job. It stands to reason that L would die young. His successor will also probably meet the same fate."

Mello's hair flicks in a straight arch as he swerves around to face his classmate, hands balling into fists. Near, also as usual, does not seem impressed, and doesn't flinch at the bite in Mello's tone when he barks, "Unless you actually have something to contribute to this investigation, _shut-up_."

"Investigation?" Near asks, looking up, but not at Mello.

Roger meets the boy's gaze. Everyone says how similar he is to L - in manner, in temperament, in brilliance - and although Roger can see the likeness, he puts little stock in it. Maybe it's because he, of all of the staff at Wammy's, has been here from the beginning. He had seen L from childhood to a fully grown man, and had, more than anything, spent a number of years with an _actual_ copy of L, who to this day strikes him as being far more accurate a reproduction than anything that Near might be, even with those deep, unreadable eyes of his.

He looks from Near to Mello to his hands where they're folded before him and sighs, shaking his head.

Mello's back at his desk then, setting all the knick-knacks within a few feet wobbling precariously. "We have to find him," he insists, eyes wide. "We're going to find him, right? He could be - he could have been kidnapped or something."

"Kira has never kidnapped anyone before," Near chimes in from the floor. Mello whips around again, spinning like a little yellow top.

"How the hell would you even know what Kira's done and not done? Are you guys pen-pals?"

"It hasn't shown up in any of the case material we've been given to review, nor has it - "

"Okay, well maybe it wasn't Kira." Mello latches onto the idea as soon as he says it and something in Roger wells up. Grief, he knows, is as desperate as it is all-consuming. "There are plenty of scumbags out there just dying to get their hands on him, maybe his identity was leaked and some random criminal found him?"

Near sighs, as if Mello's emotions are bothersome. "In that case, they would likely just kill him as well."

The way Mello's face splits with blinding rage is Roger's cue. "I swear to God, if you don't - "

"_Boys_," he says in his most authoritative voice. He has many voices, and although he prefers to used _kindly_, Mello - who's existence operates through one panic attack after another - tends to bring out others. "We can't know the situation at this point. We'll wait for more information before we proceed. But, I do think it would be wise to start considering which one of you - "

"No." It sounds strange, a word so hard and immovable, spoken in a child's voice. _He's barely 15_, Roger remembers, and watches with a thin mix of sympathy and aggravation as Mello clenches his trembling fists.

"Mello," he says calmly, "please don't interrupt."

"No." It's not an issue he's willing to be moved on, that much is clear. "Not while he's still alive. We have to find him."

He sets his bright blue eyes on Roger then, staring at him imploringly, as if this is something he could fix if only he would try. If it were as simple as a detention, as simple as allowing Mello one more chocolate bar, then this is the point where Roger would concede, but the fact is that there's simply nothing for him to do here beyond waiting for news and looking after his own side of things.

"We're doing everything we can," he says, ending the word on a cough, which he spends several seconds hacking into his handkerchief.

"Yeah, from England. We should go to Japan," Mello says. "We should go to the source."

Roger shakes his head, thinks of standing up but doesn't, just wrings his hands fitfully. "You know we can't do that."

"Why not?" Mello's anger morphs into charm suddenly, and he's grinning like a devil with a cherub's face, leaning on Roger's desk with something bright in his eyes. "We've been due for a class field trip for a while now."

Roger sighs again, rubbing at his temples. It is perhaps difficult for most grown men to argue respectfully with children without some measure of either condescension or cruelty, but he likes to think that he's had enough practice by now to manage it. "Mello," he says, with not a small amount of admiration in his voice, "your passion is inspiring, but the realities of the situation are more complicated than that, and - "

The smile drops from Mello's face and shoves off of the desk.

"Yeah," he says. "I get it." He looks down at Near, who clicks his final puzzle piece into place and gives no more reaction than that. He looks back at Roger, lip curling. "Fuck this." He's barefoot and the sound of his footfalls on the wood floors are not quite as heavy as they'd be with his usual boots on as he stomps out of the room, but the effect is virtually the same.

Roger coughs and feels that that hadn't gone as well as it could have.

"He certainly has a flair for the dramatic, doesn't he?" he says, mostly to himself. He doubts Near will appreciate any attempts at levity.

"Yes," he says, sitting up and twisting an idle hand through his hair. "Perhaps you should follow him."

Roger pushes his glasses a bit up his nose. "Why's that?"

Near picks up the puzzle and turns it upside down, letting all of the pieces fall to the floor in a thick stream, hitting the wood floor with solid sounds, and says, "Because I don't think he's going to come back."

* * *

**tbc.**

* * *

**end notes:** I hope you like horrible, creepy sex, because there's going to be a lot of that next chapter. I hope you like obsession and self-loathing, too - but of course you do, otherwise you wouldn't have made it this far in the fic. Also, I hope you like Mello. This story is going to have a lot of Mello at some point, assuming I can get to that point anywhere in the next thousand years. Thank you all for reading, reviewing, etc. You are all amazing human beings.

side-note: I now have a death note centered tumblr in addition to my regular tumblr (there's a link to both on my profile). Feel free to follow me if you are masochistic or else really bored. I sometimes talk about _Nights_ and sometimes talk about how WRITING IS HARD OMG!1! but mostly I just reblog a lot of fanart.


	7. the means

**warnings:** dub-con of the super dub-con-y variety. edging into non-con. also, erotic asphyxiation, violence, and a fair bit of masochism. sounds fun, right?

**notes:** Too much Moby-Dick? Yes, I thought so. Anyway, here, have some porn!

* * *

**chapter seven - the means.**

* * *

_"I'd rather be killed by you than kept alive by any other man."_

- Herman Melville, _Moby Dick: or, the White Whale._

* * *

Light tells him to take his clothes off and L sits there for a moment considering it, considering the fact that Kira is right here and Kira wants to fuck him and Kira really isn't as brilliant as he thinks he is.

"If it's all the same to you," L says, "I'd rather not, thanks."

He gets a harsh bark of condescending laughter in response and doesn't know why he'd expected anything more. It all feels very foreign somehow, as if Light Yagami's pretty face has been commandeered by someone else, someone who's using it to hide a particularly ugly truth. And it is ugly, isn't it? L looks at the pretty, pretty boy in front of him and sees nothing that he likes or even recognizes, just shapes that fit together to make a face, lines and curves for skin and muscle, but it's like a drawing, a statue: vacant.

He wants to put it in a box and go back to England, find a case that doesn't make him want to spit out his insides.

Light watches him, almost fondly, but there's a measure of cruelty in it, like watching a treasured dog chase its tail. "L," he says, breathing the word out like a smoke ring, thick and cloying, a pretension of seduction.

L hates the way it sounds. "You were going to tell me something yesterday," he says, just for something to do, a distraction.

He moves surreptitiously toward the opposite edge of the mattress, putting as much space between himself and Light as possible. He has a half-second flash of Light launching himself across the bed and kicking his legs apart, not asking for permission to fuck him long and deep and horrible. It would hurt, it would tear him in half, and a part of L thinks that it's what he wants most from this situation. There's a gnawing nothing in his gut and he wants Light to give him a reason to be angry, to hate, to want to destroy Kira once and for all.

As it is, he doesn't really care about the case anymore, just wants to get the fuck out of here.

So, a part of him - one that's growing fast - thinks, _okay, hurt me_. But the part of him in control of his mouth just thinks, _distraction distraction distraction, anything to keep him away_, so he says, "I want to know what you were going to tell me."

Light frowns, like he doesn't remember. L wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't. Everything that had been there before is gone.

Light just shrugs, following him across the bed. "It was probably to take your clothes off."

It's almost like L had written the script and blocked all the movements, because it goes just the way he'd imagine, Light grabbing his jaw in a rough hand to pull him into a kiss that tastes sharp and feels like nothing. L can't even muster enough emotion to feel sick.

"Light," he says, when he's shoved onto his back. Light doesn't grab his arm, goes straight for his leg, finger pads digging through his jeans, gripping to bruise and L groans with the feel of it. "Tell me - " he grits, sitting back up.

Light knocks him down. L sits back up just so that Light will do it again. Asks for answers just to hear Light deny them. He remembers this feeling, this empty, weightless, out-on-the-sea feeling where all of his thoughts devolve into the same thing and then it's just _hurt me, hurt me, hurt me_ over and over again. _Hurt me so that I have room to kill you._

"Tell me," he grunts.

Light grips his hair, tugs his head back, practically pulling out his scalp. "I don't remember," he says, voice hard.

L's eyes water. "Make something up," he says, as Light bears down on him, holding him to the mattress, hands going for his zipper. He strips him, grabs and knocks and maneuvers, tells him to _shut_-_up_. "I'm sure it'll be great. You're very articulate."

Light kisses him so hard he thinks it will bruise, crushing him into the cushions, practically suffocating him, hands going from his shoulders to his neck and jaw and lips and throat and this is Kira, _this is Kira_, and he could kill L and he should kill L and wouldn't that be just a riot? A brilliant fucking twist ending. Bam, gone, killed in bed. The world's greatest detective lets the world's greatest murderer fuck him to death. It's poetic in the way that L hates, such an unbearably _stupid_ end to an unbearably _stupid_ detective story.

_Love story_, Light had said, but that Light is gone and was a bit of an idiot, besides.

"You have a great vocabulary, too," L gasps, when Light takes a break from doing lewd, wet this to his mouth to bite at his neck, fingers twisting his nipples a little too hard to feel good, but just enough to make L's insides thrash around in his body, make him want to flood himself and drown with the wreckage. It's so pathetic and it's been so long and why does L always fall for the people most likely to kill him?

He's such a smart man and it's such an easy, easy answer, but he doesn't think it, _doesn't_ -

"I'm going to fuck you," Light grits into his ear, biting at the lobe.

"I'm sure I didn't realize."

Light huffs a laugh, pinning L's hands above his head and L lets them be pinned. He tells himself he's only going along with it to buy himself time, to keep up the charade, but his head thrills with it, with being held down, with being in the grip of Death himself - even if Death is more used to gripping a pen. Truthfully, he doesn't know why Light's doing it. Maybe he thinks that L hasn't realized the change or maybe he really does like the way it feels or maybe -

"Maybe I'll kill you," Light says, shoving L's jeans off his hips and down his legs, stripping his fully and pulling back to look down at him, the half-sneer on his face obscured slightly by arousal. "Shame I'm not Kira."

L's head goes blurry with the words and he wishes that they could whittle everything down to just this, cut all the pretenses away and just be L and Kira, fucking and at each other's throats, but there's just so much, too much, too complex for L's hazy, lust-stricken mind to process and he wants Light to fuck him and he wants to die, maybe - just for a while. Just for a little while, like a dreamless sleep. He can close his eyes until the war is over and maybe it will all be better.

"You'd like me to do it, though, wouldn't you?" Light whispers, and it works like some very fucked up dirty talk. "You're so frail," - a hand down L's ribs, fingers at his wrists, - "I could snap you in half. Would you like that, L?"

And what does one say to that, really? _Yes, please kill me_ or, _no, I'd rather you didn't_. He doesn't know the answer. He exists according to things he should say, the answers he ought to give - to win the game, to catch the crook - and he knows that's what Light is asking for now, a little spin back on the board, but he wonders, just wonders, what he would truly say if he had the option.

_I don't know_. World's greatest detective, one of the most brilliant minds of the century, and he can't even answer this simple question.

Light doesn't seem to care. L's shirt is off and Light is on him and he almost wants to go, to be out of his mind for this - and not because he doesn't like it, but because he likes it a bit too much. All the bad, wrong things are here for the taking and L wants them. He wants Light, Kira, whoever is here and touching him with quick, warm hands. He doesn't want to look at him or speak to him or think of the last three months, but he wants to be fucked by him.

"L," Light says, likes he's forgotten all about _Ryuzaki_, like there was never anything else.

"Kira," L breathes back. There never has been anything else.

Light stops, pulling back to look at him with eyes wide enough to challenge L's own. Then, slowly, his lip curls and his teeth show and maybe it's the gauntlet being thrown down and maybe it's not, but either way there's a bite in his voice when he says, "Oh, I see. That's what you want."

L doesn't know what _that_ is, assumes that it probably _is_ what he wants, but means to put in a bit of protest all the same, just to keep himself from dying - because, really, there's a difference between the metaphorical plea for death and the actual end of a life, the _kill me, kill me_ of the mind is more of a poetical exclamation than a realistic one, an understandable expression of turmoil that may not apply properly to actual facts, but which communicates the sentiment nonetheless and -

And L feels a handcuff lock around his wrist with a familiar click.

He'd had the chain special ordered from a manufacturer in Russia who had asked very few questions about an industrial strength piece of bondage equipment being needed in a length of six feet, and so he knows it as well as he knows any tools of the trade, knows it's what's on him without even having to look. It's on the opposite wrist - it was usually on his left - and it feels foreign, despite him having had the thing on him more or less constantly for almost three months.

"Kinky, Light-kun," he says, narrowing his eyes.

Light cups his chin. He's sitting on L's thighs, crushing him to the bed, so L has to tilt his face up in order for their eyes to meet. It reeks of power imbalance and he's sure that Light is having a terribly fun time establishing such, puffing up his ego to imperishable heights. He strokes L's face and the touch tingles down his body and into his bloodstream and it's pathetic, really. He's hard and he's naked and he's half-chained to a bed by one of the most prolific mass murderers in history and he really has no intention of stopping it. He's been here before, put himself in the same sort of position, but he'd always had a plan, an endgame, and now -

Now Light is wrapping the chain around the headboard, the way he'd done to Light more than once before for security reasons, and latching the other handcuff around L's other wrist. He should fight, should stop this, should come up with some course of action. Should.

He should, but he doesn't, and Light just kisses him with too much tongue and plays his fingertips in soft circles over L's hips, warm breath tingling over his ear.

"I'm just doing what you want me to do," he whispers, then pauses for a minute or two to suck marks into the skin of L's neck, the material of his slacks brushing maddeningly over his body, and L can't stop his hips from jerking up slightly. "I'm always doing what you want me to do, aren't I?" Light says.

The look on his face says he's waiting for an answer, but as soon as L opens his mouth to give him one, Light wraps a firm hand around L's cock and gives him a long squeeze, sending L's eyes back in his head and the words far away from his tongue. He thinks he makes a terribly humiliating noise, but can't be bothered to care, either way.

He has a plan, he has a plan, this is all according to plan, he just needs to be allowed to think for a moment and then he can sort himself out. Light doesn't give him a moment, though, doesn't give him anything but several rough jerks and L meets his hand with every one because he wants to come, wants the fog over his head the be lifted, wants to wet his dry throat with clever words, but he can't, he can't and Light's not going to let him.

He takes some of the slack from the chain in his free hand, pulling it so that the cuffs dig deep into L's wrists and then loops the excess quickly around L's neck, wrapping it tight around his throat and cutting his air supply down to a scant sliver. Then he pulls even tighter, and it's gone.

L's mind fuzzes with a sharp, pleasantly horrible feeling and he might come and he might die and he can't seem to decide which one makes his arousal spark more.

* * *

He'd be on the bed, even paler than usual, chain still around his neck and on his wrists, his own come spilled on his stomach, dried on his thighs and his hips and the crisp, white bedsheets. They'd call the police - even if they probably wouldn't, Light imagines that they would - and they'd send down a crime scene photographer who would take pictures of body. The come and the sweat and the desperation in his dull, dead eyes. They'd go into files, into the system. Maybe they'd even make the papers.

He can see the headline: _World's Greatest Detective Dead at 24 of Autoerotic Asphyxiation._

No one would suspect Light. Some would say that L had used the handcuff chain simply because it was handy. Others would whisper that there had been symbolism to it, that he had been thinking about Light, that he had choked himself on purpose because of his forbidden lust - or some equally ridiculous harlequin drivel about passion and suffering and pretentious things like that.

Light could do it, could kill him, could watch him die right now. The thought makes him so hard he can barely think straight, and he ends up sprawled across L's white-glass body, face tucked into his neck, hands curving up his ribs, trying to fight off the glorious mental images. He's probably leaving DNA all over him, probably ruining any chances of making a clean getaway, but there's a part of him that still wants to do it, could do it, would do it, but -

But he doesn't. Color floods into L's face as he loosens the chain - still exerting pressure, but not enough to kill him - and he coughs slightly, catching his breath, all glassy-eyed and completely pathetic. Light should kill him just to put him out of misery, but he has a week, a _whole week_ of this to look forward to, and he's not going to throw that away so soon. He can kill L every night for seven days, if only in his head, and fuck him seven different ways and have him begging for it by the end, begging for mercy.

For justice.

Light groans, is going to come in his clothes if he's not careful, so he unbuttons his pants just enough to get some relief, grinding his hips forward into L's almost involuntarily, and fuck, it's so good.

_Condoms, lube_, he thinks. Can't leave behind evidence, much as he'd like to, much as he'd like for L to have to clean himself out and remember being fucked and used and destroyed, because Light is going to fuck and use and destroy him. L wants it, it's so obvious. He knows what he is, knows what he deserves, knows the monster ought to be slain by the prince in any good story.

L's legs open easy for him and Light shoves his fingers in a bit too roughly and L tries to sit up, but he's held down by the chain still around his neck - practically a collar, a bridle for the beast - and he gives a thin, keening noise that makes Light's eyes roll and his cock jerk. If he's not careful, L will end up killing himself, and wouldn't that be the best thing? L offering himself up, truly and fully, with every understanding of what he's doing. Complete surrender, a tithe to a new God.

Light's mind thrills and he grabs L's legs, pulling them open and shoves so close he could be in him in a second, the head of his cock pressed to the crease between L's legs, just barely exerting pressure. It's a tease, and L's face is flushed warm, a welcome change to his usual blank, white stoicism. Without his memories Light had been so wishy-washy and romantic that he'd let L have the upper-hand even when being penetrated, let him steer things, have it however he wanted. Now he's given no choice, no chance to even dare ask, not with his air supply so limited and his dick so hard, beginning to leak against his stomach.

Light shifts his hips, shoving L's legs open wider, and they spread with little resistance. Light sinks in easy and he wonders, for a moment, pressed so close to something so difficult to understand - genius that he is - whether or not he might have done it all wrong, and whether he might do it differently, were he allowed another go.

Then L makes a half-garbled groaning sound and Light wonders how tight he can get the chain around his throat without him passing out, and any hint of self-doubt gets washed away in a torrent of irrepressible arousal that swims through his head on a tidal wave.

"L," he says, because no other words will come and he has to say something, has to make him understand. "_L_."

This is right, this must be right, how things ought to be. Ryuk said that the Death Note had only landed in front of him by chance, but that's ridiculous, in the same way that it's impossible to believe that the world's greatest detective just _happens_ to have black owl-eyes and gaunt ribs and pretty, crooked fingers, just _happens_ to be the best Go player Light has ever met and able to quote all of Light's favorite lines of Shakespeare off the top of his head and argue metaphysics and suck cock like a pro. There are only so many people in the world, so many tiny, little insignificant people, and it's not as if Light believes in things like true love and destiny and the like, but he knows that chance can only account for so much, and no measurable force in the universe can account for L. There is no theorem that explains how the thin skin of his eyelids looks during the few hours that he sleeps, like the wing of a moth, fragile and easily-torn, nothing to explain why when he chokes and splutters with the chain around his neck, Light immediately loosens it, chest thudding with the idea that he could go away and be dead and gone.

Light has killed thousands of people and they have faded like nothing, but L is different. L is important in ways that other people don't know how to be, a piece of the puzzle, a character in the new New Testament. He is not here by chance, not gasping and rattling his chains and kicking his feet out under Light because of a set of random circumstances. It's meant to be, it's _necessary_.

L is necessary.

He's jerking under Light like a cornered animal and he has to hold him down, catching his legs and keeping them still, thrusting in closer and harder and with little self-control, thinks he hears a cry of something like pain, maybe should have used more lube, but he doesn't care, doesn't care, couldn't care if the room caught fire - and that scares him a little bit, the idea that he can't stop, but not enough to phase him, not enough to throw off his rhythm. His fingernails dig into L's hipbones and he lets out a strangled gasp against his neck and comes quietly inside of him.

He goes still. L has been still for a while, presumably to keep from choking himself to death. Light thinks about untying him but doesn't, head still pleasantly hazy.

It can't have been more than a few minutes, though he fades in and out, before Light's pocket starts buzzing where it's slung low on his hips. He grunts, sits up, and pulls out his phone. _Misa_, of course. He rolls his eyes. He'd ignore it if he could, but he needs to keep her happy if he wants things with L to go as planned, so he answers in his most pleasant and least winded voice.

"Hello?"

L is staring at him, glassy-eyed and blank, but his erection hasn't gone down and he's stopped struggling with the chains. He looks beaten and pathetic and rather like something Light would keep locked up in closet for the rest of forever if he could afford to.

"Light!" Misa squeals, the way she squeals about everything. He often wants to tell her that he'd be much more likely to fall in love with her if she would _shut-up_ for five seconds at a time. "Where are you? What are you doing? Are you busy tomorrow? There's this new place across from my apartment and - "

"I'm just at headquarters, Misa. I'm finishing up some work." He looks L up and down as he says it, tries not to let his smirk show in his voice. "I don't have time to go out tomorrow, but why don't you come by? You can't come in, but we could see each other for a bit. I'm sure L wouldn't mind."

Misa squeals some more and Light tunes it out, using his free hand to swirl tiny patterns on the inside of one of L's pale thighs, tracing the muscles with the tips of his fingers. Eventually Misa squeals her way off the line and Light hangs up.

"Sorry about that," he says.

L just stares at him with those wide eyes, saying nothing. Light rolls his own, moving to climb back on top of him. He means to jerk him off and then let him free, maybe have a shower together, but he hates whatever quiet, unspoken thing is in L's face at the moment and wants to force it out. His fingers move across his thigh and instead of touching his cock, he ignores it completely, going back between his legs to slip inside, easy and slick. L's face does change then, draining even further of emotion, even as his pupils dilate and his breathing gets heavy again, and fuck, he loves this, doesn't he? Light is treating him like nothing, like an afterthought, like a _whore_ - yes, as it turns out, he does like that word - and L is absolutely eating it up.

His legs slip further open of their own accord and Light fingers him deeper, not touching him anywhere else, not kissing his thin, chapped lips the way he's tempted to, just finger-fucking him with a look of vague interest on his face. He thinks about calling Misa back during, just because of how much it would humiliate L, but decides that it isn't worth it to have to listen to her shrieking again, and just twists his fingers and shoves them deep.

L comes without Light once touching his cock and his eyes don't close and his face barely changes, mouth opening a little wider and back arching and breath stuttering, but he doesn't moan or whimper or cry out the way Light loves to hear him do, just spills across his stomach and rattles the chains slightly. Light pulls his fingers out, wiping them on the bedsheets, and then goes to release him with a small click of the key, folding the chain up neatly and setting it back on the bed.

L doesn't move and doesn't speak and Light thinks the whole thing is rather tiring, so eventually just leans in and pecks him on the mouth. "I'm going to go have a shower," he says casually, standing to do up his trousers.

"In your own room?" L says quietly.

He's acting rather strange, but Light doesn't think much of it. "Yes, yes," he says, ruffling L's dark hair with one hand. "You should probably get some more sleep in the meantime." He flicks off the lamp as he goes out, soft steps padding against the carpeting. "Night."

* * *

L doesn't remember making the decision to get up but in the next moment he's standing in the middle of the room, so he must have. He moves to go turn the light back on, but instead picks up the lamp and hurls it across the room.

It hits the wall with a crash of glass and ceramic and L watches it fall to pieces. A fully functional piece of equipment - thanks to the much esteemed Edison, or rather more accurately, Tesla - one second, the next, rubble and scrap. Things become useless at a moment's notice, completely destroyed in the blink of an eye and no one really pays attention, no one sorts the wreckage. There are no men in white coats keeping track of all the lamps that break and what happens to the pieces, where they go, but human beings are always breaking things, absolutely destroying the things around them and where do all the lost, left over parts go? Into the landfill outside of New York City so big that it can be seen from space? Into the dirt?

L hates dirt. Roger used to put him in clean white tennis shoes and send him out to play with B and A on spring mornings. B used to take his shoes and socks off and crawl around in the mud, like a little beast. L had hated the tennis shoes, but he'd hated the dirt more. He'd started studying chemical decomposition before he could ride a bike, but he still didn't like the dirt. It had seemed very low and animal, beneath him. He'd been such a bright boy, everyone had said.

B used to throw mud-pies at him, staining his clean white shirts.

He looks down at himself, at the semen drying on his stomach and feels strangely distanced from it, like it's somebody else's semen on somebody else's stomach. He's done this clean-up routine so many times before, but he's sure he must have been somebody else all those other times, too.

The room is dark and he's broken the lamp, so he goes into the bathroom and flips on the fluorescents. They're bright and he squints up at them. He should take a quick shower and then go back to work, has so much to do. After all, Kira's not going to incarcerate himself. Not twice in a row. Instead he plugs up the tub and begins filling the bath.

He stands there, watching the water rise. There's a knock at the door that doesn't wait for an answer and then someone is coming into the room.

_He's back_, is L's first thought, and he can't properly understand why his instinctual reaction is to turn off the Light and pretend that he's not here. It's not him, though, not by the smell of the perfume, which is too flowery to be Light's cologne and not flowery enough to be Aiber's. Wedy's heels click on the tile when she reaches the bathroom.

"L," she says, coming around the doorway, "are you alive in there? I heard - "

She stops. Maybe it's because he's naked and maybe it's just something in his manner, because he feels hazy and half-together, like a lot of time had passed in between Light telling him to take his clothes off and Light kissing him goodnight.

"Watari," he says, without turning around. "Can you get me Watari."

If it were Aiber, he'd be yelling. He'd be demanding to know what_ "that little shit"_ has done now, would be cleaning L off and jerking him around with his large hands, and giving him heavy, imploring glances, and promises to break heads open if needed. L is glad that it's not Aiber. He would try to help, but he would only get in the way.

Wedy is more subtle. "Are you alright?" she says, walking further into the room. The click-click-click of her shoes is unbearable and L wishes she would take them off. She's referring, of course, to the state of him. One word from him and she'd have Light back here and bleeding from several orifices. She doesn't say it, but it doesn't need to be said.

L turns around, giving her the full view. She frowns, tries not to show whatever she's feeling in her face, and he tries not to see it.

"Don't give me that look," he says, with something that, if he put a little more into it, might be a smile. "You know I'm an old pro at this. I just need to change around a few of my strategies. Please bring me Watari."

She watches him for a second longer. "Yeah, okay."

Once she's gone, L turns the tap off. Without the rushing of the water loud in the background, the room seems very large and very silent. He's not used to bathing alone. He sinks down into the water, legs curled under his chin, and tries to think. It's very hot and he feels very dirty. He thinks that must have been Light's intention. He thinks, but - he doesn't _know_ Light's intentions. He hadn't even known his own intentions, back there. _To be or not to be_ - it had been one of those, anyway. He'd had a plan and he'd followed it to a point, but he'd been afraid, very afraid. He'd felt weak and small and conquered, which are things that he has never been, has no capacity to be. He's done this dozens of time, with dozens of people. He'd let them have their way, let them _destroy_ him if they'd wanted to, but he'd always had a plan, and in the end, he'd always come up on top.

So then, he has to come out on top. Light can throw all the mud-pies he likes; L will catch them and re-serve.

When Watari comes in L is sitting curled up in the bath, bubbles surrounding him like an impenetrable fortress. He pulls up a chair and a little side table and sets out tea for two. L isn't thirsty. He watches the bubbles fizz out for a long moment.

"Do you think I'm pathetic?" he asks the echoing hollows of the room after a while, not looking up.

Watari's voice is kind and stern. "I think you're brilliant."

L snorts. "Are those two things really mutually exclusive?"

Watari doesn't answer, just stirs his tea and then mixes sugar into L's, since it seems as if he's not going to do it himself. "Have you eaten since Higuchi's capture?" he asks.

It's L's turn to ignore a question, and he just goes back to making towers and turrets out of the bubbles. Watari sighs and stands up, going back into the bedroom to pick up L's clothes and fold them neatly to take down to the laundry, then brings him a large, fluffy towel out of the linen closet and sets it down within his reach. They are both silent for a bit longer, L doing little to clean or groom himself - Light has been shampooing his hair for him of late - and trying to decide what he means to do about all of this.

He's not sure how much Watari knows or has guessed - there aren't camera's in this room, so he cant be certain of anything - but he hopes it's not much. Aside from being a lot of trouble, this whole situation is mostly just embarrassing. The idea that he can't handle himself, that some puffed-up little boy with a magical notebook can make him feel weak and small and out of control is _disgusting_. He is disgusted - with himself, with Light, with the way he'd kicked and fought, with how afraid he'd been, if only for one short moment.

L has had many things done to him for the sake of his investigations, but he'd gone through them with steely resolve, suffered the arrows and slings with dignity. He feels very young now. He feels 24. Or maybe like an anorexic 18-year-old.

Light had said that to him. God, he misses Light. L never misses anybody, but he misses Light.

"I need you to keep the taskforce occupied tomorrow morning, in my absence," he says finally, looking down at his hands. They're starting to prune.

Watari's mustache bristles and he nods shortly. He stands and, after a pause, says, "You're not going to _kill_ the boy, are you?"

L pops bubbles with the tips of his fingers and smiles quite unkindly, feels unkind. "Oh no," he says. "I'd never dream of doing such a thing without you there." If Watari hears the bite in his voice, as he surely does, he makes no mention, nodding again with a narrow look in his eye, and leaving. He shuts the door behind him.

L stays in the bath long after the water goes cold.

* * *

Quillish takes L's comment about Matsuda being put in charge of the Death Note as a joke and locks it in one of the security vaults. Matsuda is, of course, very disappointed, but everyone else looks rather relieved. L is out of sorts and already working hard enough on one avenue of investigation; he hasn't time to take care of all of the loose ends. That's what Quillish is for. L looks after the world, but Quillish looks after L and always has done. Or, has at least since his late forties.

L is at once like a small child and a God, though he hates to be compared to either of those things. He is utterly fallible, but unrelenting. He can and has been knocked down plenty of times, but he always gets back up again with tougher skin and colder eyes. He is a blunt instrument honed into sharp metal and he can do absolutely anything. Quillish doesn't trust L as far as he can throw him, knows not to believe a word of what comes out of his mouth on a daily basis, but he has complete faith in him. Like a father would his son, or a man his God.

So he makes sure that no one on the investigation team goes near the basement levels or wonders where L and Light have got off to. He deletes the security footage seconds after it's recorded.

L will tell him all about it later. Or maybe he won't, but it doesn't truly matter. Quillish has a job to do.

* * *

He wakes with tape over his mouth.

He kicks out, legs going up and jerking around wildly, as someone cuffs his hands behind his back. The metal is cold and familiar on his wrists, but it's too short to be _the_ chain. That's his first clue that it's not L. The second is the fact that someone's cursing at him in French. He knows that L speaks French - and English and German and Chinese and Spanish and Arabic and virtually everything else one could possibly speak - but he doesn't often use it without cause.

The third and most damning clue is blinking up at Aiber's smug face right before a blindfold is shoved over his eyes. He's jerked up from the bed and begins to kick again, but then he feels something cold pressed against his side and Wedy's smoke-stained voice casually saying, "You've got plenty of inessential limbs. Don't make me put a bullet in one."

He goes still, sense of self-preservation taking over, even as his mind skips through possible avenues of escape, running though all of his options, looking for a way out. She won't shoot him, not really. L wouldn't - this is L's doing, of course, and L wouldn't want him dead. Not like this, anyway. They march him quietly down a hall and then presumably into an elevator. He can just see out of the bottom of his blindfold and the floor tiles are unfamiliar, so he assumes they're in some part of the massive building that he hasn't yet been to.

"Do you have to wave that thing around?" Aiber grunts, presumably to Wedy, but she just _hmmphs_ and mumbles that she needs a cigarette, gun still trained on Light.

The elevator dings and they take him down another hall and then left - he maps it all out in his head, just in case - and set him in a chair, securing him to it with another set of chains. L's really fond of overly elaborate interrogative bondage, isn't he? Absolutely fucked in the head. Light sits there, feet tapping, almost enthused by the situation. Then, out of nowhere, a heavy fist slams into his jaw, catching the edge of his mouth. He groans and it tastes like pennies.

The tape is ripped off.

"What the hell are you doing?" he chokes out, blood from his split lip dripping down onto his chin. He struggles, testing his bonds, but they hold as well as L's chains always have. He means to yell some sort of abuse, but he's caught in the stomach, the blow ricocheting through his gut and making him rock with sickness.

He's going to vomit, he's actually going to vomit.

"What - "

"Easy there, boy," Aiber says lowly, hand coming down to stay his shoulders. Then the blindfold is pulled off, though not with particular kindness, and Light blinks at the contrasting brightness. _He's going to vomit_.

Wedy is there, tapping an unlit cigarette against her lips. L is to her left, curled up in chair opposite Light and watching him without expression. He's dressed in his usual clothes, but over them he wears a heavy brown coat that looks like it was designed for someone twice his size. Aiber shoots a questioning glance at him and Light watches L nod soberly. Then he feels a sharp kick to shin and he can't help the grunt of pain that slips out, almost knocking over his chair in his fit to get as far away from Aiber as possible. His eyes water involuntarily and if he had his Death Note he'd kill them all right now. If he had his hands free he'd strangle L the way he ought to have yesterday, L who's just watching on, unfazed, as if he and Light are perfect strangers.

Another nod. Aiber hits him again.

Light lets out something that sounds suspiciously like a half-sob, but it's not real, _it's not real_. Let them think they're succeeding, let them think he's beaten, but he's _not_. He is God and L is -

"Stop." L's voice is very loud in the wide room, drowning out Light's heavy breaths. Aiber stops immediately. He had been grinning back in Light's bedroom, but he's not now. "Go," L says. Wedy walks out of the room without a pause, lighting her cigarette as she goes. After a moment and a long look at L, Aiber follows her.

L stares at Light and Light stares at L.

Light's jaw aches and his stomach turns and he doesn't understand why L is doing this to him. He narrows his eyes and spits out some blood, just daring L to lay a hand on him without his bodyguard around. L doesn't move.

"I'm going to tell you a story," he says. "You're always asking about me, about my history, so I'm going to tell you."

That had certainly not been what Light had been expecting, but he doesn't interrupt. He's too shell-shocked to come up with words suitably eloquent enough to explain how _fucking furious_ he is.

L clears his throat, a keen, unreadable look in his eye. "My mother died during childbirth and I spent my early years in a children's poor house in a small town in England," he begins, and Light clenches his teeth. "I went to work picking oakum when I was nine and - "

"That's _Oliver Twist_," he says, barely restraining an eye-roll. A part of him wants to laugh, and maybe he would if his gut wasn't aching and his head didn't feel as if it had been put on backwards.

"Oh," L says. "You're right. I do get he and I confused sometimes. Let's see." He tugs on his lip with an errant finger. "In truth, I was raised by my older sister and her husband. He was a blacksmith and I apprenticed for him until I came into a good deal of money from a - "

Light turns his snort into a cough. "_Great Expectations_," he says, realizing that L is, for lack of a better word, _teasing_ him. "Why all the Dickens?"

"You'd prefer something else? Ahem. _'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of good_ -_'_ "

There's a grim sort of hilarity to the situation, Light grabbed from his bed, tied to a chair on an abandoned floor all so that L could quote _Pride and Prejudice_ at him. In the first place, he knows for a fact that L isn't overly fond of Austen - _"More of a Bronte sort,"_ he'd told him, during one of their late nights - and in the second, there doesn't seem to be any point to it, other than to shake him up. L may be unreasonable, but he's not incompetent. He has to have a purpose.

Perhaps to bore him to death.

Maybe Light will look back on this moment with fond amusement after L is dead, but it's hard to muster any sort of good feeling toward him while tasting his own blood in his mouth.

"Are we going to play 'guess L's favorite books' all day," he snaps, "or can you throw me in a cell and be done with it?"

He doesn't actually expect L to incarcerate him, and throws it down as an option just to completely rule it out. After all, L's plan is surely to shake him up as much as possible. He's not going to do something that he thinks Light will expect, but Light knows enough by now to expect _anything_. L is not above anything.

_"Then what is the difference between you and Kira?" _Light has asked, _before_.

Among other things, at least Kira has some fucking decorum.

L scratches his head lazily with two fingers, then stands up. The coat shifts slightly with the movement and Light's attention catches on a few faint marks around his neck. From last night, he realizes, and can't decide if he feels guilty or self-satisfied, until the throbbing in his jaw decides it for him. At least the chain had been good for something.

L paces the length of the small room. It looks like more like a disused office than a cell, although the only pieces of furniture are the chair Light's in and the one L's just vacated. L had paced often, when they'd been chained together, and often Light had had to pace with him simply as a matter of course.

L tips his head back to stare at the ceiling, as if his lines are written up there. "I really do have a story to tell you," he says, after circling the room several times over. "But it's not about me."

"You said it was," Light tells him, trying to sound bored and and unconcerned.

"I lied. It's a thing I do. Keep up." L's still talking to the ceiling. Light wants to bash his head in with a blunt object. "This is a story about names. Or rather, about a young man who knew people's names. Everyone's. As soon as he met them."

Light freezes.

"I know," L says, nodding without looking at him, "it seems like a cheap party trick, but it's true. Even names that were never spoken, names that were nowhere on file anywhere in the whole world. He just knew them." He flicks his eyes toward Light, muscles not shifting an inch. "That remind you of anyone?"

He thinks for a second that L is talking about him, that it's just another _I know you're Kira_ ploy, but L doesn't say it accusatorially so much as curiously, and anyway, the evidence that L has at his disposal would lead him to a different conclusion.

"The Second Kira, maybe," Light says, after a moment, like he's followed the same line of thought. The original Kira needs a name _and_ a face, the Second only a face. Does L know about the eyes? No, he can't. Rem wouldn't have said and Misa doesn't even have her memories yet. Light had meant to give her the instructions tomorrow. Today? He doesn't even know what time it is or how long he'd been asleep. L could have drugged him or -

No. No, he has to stay calm. He clears his throat. "So, you've decided that it's a man, then? That must mean Misa's in the clear."

"On the contrary," L says, probing eyes locked on Light. "Misa is very far from being in the clear. And I'm not talking about the Second Kira, I'm talking about someone I know to be 100% separate from all of the Kiras. Someone Kira has never met or heard of. But, if the Second Kira does have the ability to instinctively know anyone's name, then she - " Light begins to protest " - or _he_ must have gotten it from the Death Note, correct?" L doesn't give Light time to answer. "So, it stands to reason that this young man must also have a Death Note, does it not?"

All the muscles in Light's neck go tense and hard and no, he's lying, he's lying - there's no way there's someone else out there with a Death Note. How would L even know? He'd only found out about the notebook two days ago. He knows nothing, he's just making things up, trying to scare Light, panicking. He knows Light is going to kill him - must have realized yesterday, the chain had been too much, too far - and he's trying to save himself.

"Don't worry," L says, catching Light's expression. "He doesn't pose any threat to us. Not yet, anyway."

Light sits there for a long time, trying to decide what to say to that. Should he ask questions? Would it be too suspicious? Would it be suspicious not to?

"Did you have to tie me up and beat me in order to tell me that?" he asks, after a moment, letting his body deflate in the chair, trying to make it obvious to L that he's no threat at the moment and that it's fine to let him go. He assumes that his father and the other investigators haven't been told about this situation, because if they had L would never have gotten away with setting Aiber on him little a rabid dog. So it's just him and L on the playing field, as it should be.

"No," L says, walking over to stand in front of him, "that was for last night."

It takes a moment for Light to understand what he means - last night had been good, had been _so good_ - but his eyes flit to the marks on L's neck and he thinks maybe everything looks a little different from the morning after.

L starts walking again, passes him by and heads for the door.

"What, are you embarrassed or something?" Light calls, just to make him stop. It works. "Is that what this is about? Pissed because the tables were turned for just a few minutes and suddenly you were the one without any power?" He's almost glad he's tied to a chair; it lends a lot of weight to his argument.

L turns around on him so fast that Light's almost sure he'll knock himself down with the force of it.

"Don't," he whispers, voice a thin sliver of something torrential, "speak to me about power. Not as you are. Not as Light Yagami."

Light doesn't know what that's even supposed to mean. He is Light Yagami and Light Yagami is Kira and Kira is him - but to L there seems as if there's some sort of disconnect, like he's drawn a visible line into what they were before and what they are now. But it's not different, not really. Light's only regained his memories, not suffered some sort of Jekyll and Hyde switch where's he become a completely different person. His principles aren't changed, they're just more clear now. Still, it stands to reason that L wouldn't want to believe otherwise, would want to salvage some form of self-respect by denying that the boy he'd been so fond of these past few months is the same one who's spun the world on it's head, changed all the rules.

L stands there for a moment, body taut and tall, before he shakes his head and pulls out a key, curling down to unlock Light's chains with steady hands. First the ankles, then the wrists.

"I really would like to talk to you," he says as he works, making _you _sound like something new, something separate, "larger than life force of justice to larger than life force of justice." He looks up at Light, eyes steady and less cruel than they'd been a moment ago. "But you have to take off the mask first. I'm not going to argue with someone who doesn't exist."

Light almost smiles at him. Instead, he shoves out of the chair and grabs L by the throat of his ugly brown coat, stumbling them half across the room and drawing his fist back.

"Make it good," L says, right before Light punches him in the face.

It hurts his fist and it hurts him to stand, right shin aching and stomach still rolling. His lip has stopped bleeding but he doesn't doubt that any pronounced twist of expression will crack it open again. L doesn't make a sound of pain, doesn't try to stop him, and when Light pulls back and lets him go, he just slumps into the wall rather casually and rubs at the skin of his jaw.

"Now we'll match," he says, nodding at Light's lip. "I'm sure the taskforce won't find it overly suspicious."

Given the number of fistfights they've gotten into since first being chained together, Light thinks he's probably right. Although, the damage is a little more extensive this time and so, mostly just because his body aches and he's pissed off, he says, "I could show them the rest." He pulls up his shirt. There's a mark purpling on his abdomen. "Show them what you did to me."

L looks at his bare skin, face blank.

"And I coat unzip this coat and show them the bruises around my neck," he says, voice an even mumble, emotion locked out.

He keeps it on, though.

Light doesn't like that, so after a moment he moves in closer, backing L into the wall and tugging down the zipper with careful fingers. He more than expects to be shoved away, but L lets him open the coat up far enough to see the marks, to see the way they paint him in pinks and and light purples. For some reason, it has the effect of making L seem less fragile than he normally does, even backed against the wall as he is. Like he can withstand anything that Light can throw at him.

Light sort of wants to kiss him, but he doesn't think it will go over well, so he just reaches out, the tips of his fingers hovering over the marks.

After a silence that probably lasts too long, he says, "And I could tell them how much you liked it." He speaks softly, letting his breath puff out over L's face, but he doesn't fade into it like he usually does, doesn't bend to Light's body. Apparently he's abandoned whatever role he's been playing all this time, or maybe - maybe it hadn't truly been a role. Maybe that's the problem.

"Because you did," Light continues, lips so close that he could press them to L's neck, to his jaw and ear and shoulder. "That's why you're angry, isn't it? You like to be hurt, to be wrecked. You like to let people wreck you." He says the words into the cool line of L's throat, makes the skin shivers slightly beneath his lips. L's eyes are clouded over and the look in them is halfway between angry and terrified. "I'm not the Judas to your tormented savior," Light bites out, "but you love to think that, don't you? Want to be a martyr so badly, L?"

Light draws the back of his hand along Light's face. L takes in a breath and doesn't let it out.

"All you have to do is wait."

* * *

He has Aiber and Wedy escort Light back up to his room because he can't manage it himself. That feeling is back, that feeling like he wants to drink an entire bottle of gin or throw himself out of a window. Just fall to the ground, spine breaking and skull cracking and muscles loose and useless forever after. The end of the show, curtains go down. No one claps.

Although, Light is right - if L really wants to die, all he has to do is wait. Just do nothing until the hammer of justice knocks him down.

And it's a terrifying thought, because he should do something - _anything_ - but he can't seem to make himself move.

* * *

Light has to kill L.

Light _has_ to. All of his plans hinge on this one event. He kills L, and then everything works out. That's how it goes. The story has already been planned out in his head for ages, he sees it all, how it will go down in the history books. An enemy vanquished. The end of an era of false justice.

The end of L's thin mouth and his gaunt shoulders and his aborted laughs and quiet, rambling murmurs in the dark. The end of the rose-colored glasses that he'd stuck over Light's eyes and somehow, for some brief span of time that won't mean in anything in the grand scheme, made him believe that there were things in the world that would bend and not break, things that don't need to be broken in the first place. Things that are already good as they are and shouldn't be changed or removed or cleaned up, but simply locked away in glass cases to be kept hanging in their colossal, impossible, imperfect loveliness. It's poetry and it's a bit trite and maybe a little bit pathetic, but poetry is what moves all the mountains in the end, and the dream-world of Kira is only really a pretty story crafted from pretty ideas. Light should be able to have other pretty things, if he wants them.

Light misses his date with Misa and instead goes looking for Rem. He's running out of time and there's so much he needs to do.

* * *

**tbc.**

* * *

**end notes:** It's ridiculous how much western literature they talk about in this, but I don't know any of the japanese classics and I'm way too much of a lazy asshole to read any of them for the purposes of this fic. So, what gets referenced is mostly things I have read (i.e., not a lot).

In other news, does anyone remember when this fic was about something besides L's fucked-up emotional issues? Anyone? No, me neither. I promise things (gasp!) will happen next chapter, this was just something I wanted to explore before I could really go anywhere else, because I'm very off in the head.

Thank you all for reading/reviewing/etc., you're excellent!


	8. man loved the birds

**warnings:** I don't actually think there's any sex in this chapter? wow, that's a first. no, don't run away! I promise there are lots of invasions of personal space. and, uh, underage drinking.

**notes:** Congratulations! You've made it this far into this monstrosity. As a reward, some plot events might actually sort of happen this chapter ~ wow!

In all seriousness, a million thanks to everyone who's reading this, or reviewing, favoriting, following, etc. And thank you to the people on tumblr for being brilliant darlings. Thank you all, in general.

* * *

**chapter eight - man loved the birds.**

* * *

_"The French have a phrase for it. The bastards have a phrase for everything and they are always right. 'To say goodbye is to die a little.'"_

- Raymond Chandler, _The Long Goodbye_

* * *

He builds himself a box. He is a marvelous builder, a practiced artist when it comes to small, enclosed spaces and he stands in the middle of his bedroom - his, Light's, theirs, whatever; only matters now as far as symbolism goes - and builds himself a box. He can't move his arms or his legs, cannot think his thoughts. He becomes a thing that does not exist, just for a moment, just for as long as it takes him to blink and breathe in softly, trying to set himself right. He hears the knock. He doesn't move.

Aiber's palm is warm when it falls to his shoulder, more awkward and stilted than it's designed to be.

"Hey," Aiber says.

"Get your hands off of me."

L doesn't shake him off, doesn't pull out of his reach, just lays it down as an order: _you can only touch me when I say you can touch me and you cannot touch me now_. A pang of annoyance slips into his box when Aiber doesn't move. His grip gets tenser, veins shifting under the skin, and then L's being jerked around to face him. Aiber's face is void of its usual lightness and he looks oddly concentrative, as if he's given the situation a good deal more thought than he is normally wont to do. Wedy in behind him, posed reticently in the doorway.

"Don't pull that shit with _me_, L," he says, not unkindly, but his voice is hard.

L frowns. He has to nip this in the bud if he doesn't want it to get out of hand, and he has enough to deal with at the moment. "What?" he asks. "Do you think you're important? That you have some kind of favor with me? Light Yagami was under the same impression, and you can see how it's working out for him."

L keeps his voice even and Aiber's brow shifts as he speaks the words, like a dog trying to understand human speech. L feels little more than disgust towards him at the moment. He is disgusted by everything at this moment, most especially the things outside of his box; sick, strange, unsanitary things.

"Don't you ever get tired of - " Aiber starts, then stops. He shakes his head. "Nevermind."

He leaves, forcing his way past Wedy and out of the room like the mountain running away from Muhammad. L misses him when he's gone, misses the disgust and fever of being afraid. Wedy's still there, but she's not half as much of a threat, because she's never tried to _know_ him - not in the way Aiber has, the way Light is.

She's all business. "Is he going to kill us?" she asks. "Aiber and I? Because I'll do a lot, but I draw the line - "

"He won't get your names. Not while I'm alive." He says it not because he knows it, but he thinks it's what will make her go away. It doesn't.

"And what if he kills you? If you were ever safe, you aren't now. Not after that." She's playing with her lighter, nails flicking against the body; nervous, but quietly. "If you were really such a genius, you would leave. Now. Pursue the case from a different location. If he doesn't have your name yet, don't give him time to find it out, just go." Her expression is much more distant than Aiber's and if she truly cares about his life and not just her own, she's determined not to let it show. L finds the scarcity of emotion comforting in that way that unappealing things can be, if they're familiar enough.

"I am not running away from a child with a god complex," he says, the words forced out like a battle cry, a call to arms that has no one to call.

"He's not the only one with a god complex."

L blinks. "Wedy," he says, gently, "get out."

She does. He stands for a while, then sits. The world has lost its angles, gone thick and splotchy with the feeling of pointlessness that settles into him. He has a purpose, a job to do, but no desire to do it and so it all feels like time wasting, just trying to fill the space that is left for him to fill. Light is going to kill him and L knows, logically, that he ought to stop him. He just can't seem to get up the energy to try.

He falls back, feet still touching the ground, hair landing around him like an ugly crown. He imagines a world where he could think straight, a world where he is nobody in particular and Light is just Light - the Light he _had_ been, the one who lives between the mask and truth, the conflicted, young part stuck in the middle that had made L feel less weak through his own weakness - and they could live somewhere, together. A place, a circumstance where chains would be unnecessary, where they could dance around the truth for fun instead of fear, could separate from the rest of the world and into their own. Light could read the paper and L could rest his head in his lap and it would be dull and beautiful in its banality, something to grow bored of instead of be killed by. Maybe they'd break up and go their separate ways and, in this theoretical nowhere-world, maybe that wouldn't be a big deal, wouldn't be worthy of a death sentence.

He puffs the strands of hair out of his eyes and feels far away from himself.

* * *

It takes a while to get Rem to agree to it, and even when she does, sorting out the details is a pain. She wants to know all about how Misa will fit into it, what it will mean, what will happen if it goes wrong, and Light has to explain again and again that it _won't _go wrong, as long as Rem plays her part. By the time she agrees, he's missed three calls from Misa and has to suffer through a lot of squealing and hugging on the steps of the investigation headquarters in order to slip the note into her pocket. She smells like raspberries and her hands are very small in his. She feels more to him like an annoying little sister than a girlfriend, someone he has to appease as a matter of course.

That, of course, makes him think of Sayu, and that makes him think of how different everything is going to be, _after_. He'll have his autonomy back, can go and see his sister and his mother whenever he likes, can go anywhere. The world is open to him and L is the only thing standing in the way.

"Say hi to Ryuzaki and everyone for me!" Misa calls cheerily as she skips off, expertly covering any surprise at being given a secret note, which is at least some comfort.

Light takes the elevator up to the main room the find L hunched in a chair, which has become unusual in recent days, eating pocky and speaking lowly to Matsuda. Light frowns, has a brief image of Matsuda bending over L - in a bathroom stall, a supply closet, whatever - red-faced and delirious at his good fortune. L would give it up to him for loyalty, maybe, or perhaps for no reason beyond sheer human desperation. It's a very unlikely scenario, but Light imagines it anyway, just to have reason for the distaste that rises in him, watching them speak.

"And then Watari said you'd only been joking, which was honestly kind of a relief. The Shinigami follows the notebook around and, I mean, I guess it's not dangerous or anything, but it's pretty weird to have it floating next to you when you're trying to - oh, hey, Light! How's Misa-Misa?"

Light gives some mundane, placating response and goes on to answer Matsuda's overly excited questions about his lip and L's bruise and whether or not they'd gotten into a fight and what it had been about and are they okay now and do either of them want an icepack, because Matsuda can go get some. Light declines, but L says yes, presumably to get rid of him, and then it's just the two of them surrounded by the warm whirring of the computer systems and the quiet chatter of the rest of the team.

Light looks at the blooming purple bruise at the corner of L's mouth, spread low on his jaw, fading out in an ugly yellow toward his cheek. It looks like sickness and desiccation and it is only beautiful because of how ugly it is. Looking at it makes Light tongue his healing lip. He's got bruises worse than L's all over him and he thinks he should still be angry about that, but he's not. L had, over the course of their time together, mentioned many a job-inflicted injury, earned in the service of justice. L hadn't made them sound particularly romantic, but Light remembers thinking that suffering for the good of the world must be very fulfilling. His aches and pains now, though not exactly the same, instill him with a strange sense of pride.

He sits down and abruptly says, "How many bones have you broken in your life, do you think?" at the same time as L mumbles, "It's my birthday the day after tomorrow."

They shock each other into silence, and Light feels very silly for asking such a needless question, so much so that it takes him a moment to process what L had just said, and when he does, he can't help marveling at the brilliance of the situation. Like poetry, he thinks. As if he'd written it just like this.

"25?" he asks.

L raises his eyebrows. "Oh, not so many as that. Over ten, though."

Light takes a moment to understand what he's talking about - bones instead of years. It's impressive. Over ten is a lot.

"I meant your age," he says.

"Oh. Yes."

They sit for a while in a silence that would be much more awkward if they weren't both so aware of it being so, and it is therefore made almost hilarious, in an upsetting sort of way. Light's a bit giddy inside and L is far-removed. It's all a big mess, really, couldn't get worse if they put effort into trying to make it so. That's what Light is betting on, anyway. The fate of the world is hanging on his snap decision, his strange shift of plans. It's so terrifying in its immensity that, from this distance, it becomes a joke.

Matsuda comes back with the ice-pack eventually. L thanks him stiffly and doesn't use it, so Light picks it up for him, rolling his eyes as he presses it to L's bruised skin. He feels like the harried mother of a developmentally stunted child. L's eyes drop closed against the sharp pressure of the cold, teeth gritting. Light wants to kiss his eyelids, run his hands against his skull.

Instead, he says, "If you had the option, would you take me away with you?" L blinks his eyes open at that, but Light doesn't meet them as he continues. "To England, or wherever you plan to go when this is all over. I know it's not going to happen, but would you, if you could?"

He can feel L staring at the curve of his neck. He is solemn and he seems at once much older and much younger than 25, everything but 25. "You'd hate the weather in England," he says finally. He leaves it at that.

* * *

The inanity of big, dramatic events is that everything in between them feels arbitrary. A film can cut from action scene to action scene and a book can tell you only the important bits, but real life isn't so narratively concise. As much as one might want the atmosphere to continue on into the next day, things snap quickly back to their usual mundanity. So Light chokes him and fucks him and he has Light beaten and chained to a chair, but by the next day it's already become tiring to hold grudges, to prolong the crisis.

Things continue on as they must.

"I found Wedy's stash," L says, as soon as he sees Light. He catches him on the stairs, holding up a bottle of something with a very high proof.

"And?" Light says.

"And," L says, "I think we should drink it and have sex."

A pause. "I don't drink," Light says. He looks surprised in a jittery, uncertain sort of way.

L shrugs. "Then we could just have sex."

In actuality, they do drink and they don't have sex. They go to Light's room because it's clear of shared sense memory, ending up on the floor instead of the bed - clean, crisp sheets tucked in at the edges; too perfect to muss - and taking small sips at first, then larger, then lying spread out beside one another on the scratchy carpet, watching the hazy ceiling lights twinkle above them. There is something less debilitating about lolling about on the floor drinking and doing nothing productive when you have someone to do it with, someone who gets drunk much more thoroughly and easily, and smiles at you with his handsome eyes and paws at you with his fine hands.

L climbs on top of Light at one point, because they can't seem to manage it the other way, and they kiss softly and move against each other discordantly, but nothing much comes of it - pun recognized, but not particularly intended. It's more like grappling with an animal than anything else, each of them trying to wrangle the other into the specified position, each blurred and miserable in their own way - at least he thinks, _hopes_, Light is miserable. There is a good chance that this is all a show, just another game of pretend, but then there always is that chance and L can't be bothered to mind, either way.

_Tomorrow_, he tells himself. Tomorrow he will catch Kira, tomorrow he will save the world. Maybe the day after. He's already spoken privately to Watari about setting up a test for the 13 day rule, but intends to take measures beyond that in order to ensure his success.

He intends to.

For now, he strokes along Light's thigh and presses his face against the crook of his shoulder, collarbone kneading into his cheek. They have conversations, hazy and half-there and about nothing of particular interest. Light will say something and L will make some reply and they will tumble forward, the blind leading the blind into something like a strange sort of intimacy, one they seem to enter at unusual intervals and with little regard for the situation at hand.

"I dislike animals," Light says, at one point. "Sayu always wanted a cat, but she wouldn't have taken care of it and I would have had to take care of it and everyone knew that so she never got a cat."

"Why would you have taken care of it?"

"Because she wouldn't have."

"But if you dislike animals."

"I dislike a lot of things."

Light is next to him, twisting his fingers through L's hair, and his voice is low and tired and tiring. L wants to kiss him but his arm has fallen asleep and these two things seem connected to one another, somehow.

"We had a dog when I was younger," he says instead. "A great, dumb, sheepish beast who would bite only when she was sure of there being no repercussions. Horrible animal. I don't remember her name. I miss her."

"Did it die?" Light asks.

"Of course she died. Everything dies."

"Not you."

"I haven't yet, no."

"You won't. I don't think - I think you won't."

"That's very kind of you to say."

"I'm not being kind."

"No, you never are."

They do kiss then, but Light's the one who shifts to initiate it. He tastes thickly of alcohol, like sickness and weight and unreasonable things that have no names. In that moment, L feels very inclined to run away and elope with him, except without the actual marriage or the traveling, and he'd have to bring Watari of course, so maybe what he wants more is a metaphorical elopement. He wants to and he entertains it contentedly and that's worth about as much as the act itself. _Love_ is such an uncalled for word in any situation, but it fits nicely into this one and L lets it float in the back of his mind like a private joke with himself.

"That boy," Light says at one point, "the one who knew names."

"I made him up," L mumbles.

"Oh."

It's as easy as that.

"I lied to you when I said you were my first friend," L says at another point.

Light scoffs, taking a long sip. "Do you think I don't know that?"

"No. I think you know it, but in the wrong way. We're friends now, I suppose, but I've had friends before and better friends at that."

"Aiber and Wedy?"

"And people like them, yes."

"Those aren't friends."

"Then I suppose I never have had any friends, up to and including you."

"I suppose I never have either."

L imagines he can hear sirens from the streets below, but knows he can't. They're too high up and the building is too well-made. Light's lips are warm against his temple. They're not really concerned with touching each other anymore, individually collapsed and only half on top of one another by chance. Light's bangs tickle his forehead.

"We're not the brilliant minds we like to pretend to be, are we?" L says, for some reason he will not remember in the morning. "Great, big fakes, the both of us."

Light sits up, looking at him curiously. Then, before he can say whatever he's going to say, he leans away from L, thrusting out a hand to steady himself before promptly throwing up on the carpet beside him. His body spasms with the force of it, racked and shivering. By the time L thinks to help him to the toilet, he's done, sitting up and wiping his lips and frowning like he can't quite believe he's just done that.

Then he groans, shoving a hand to his forehead.

"I quite agree," L says, slipping one of Light's arms over his shoulder.

He manages to haul him up and over to the bed, dropping him on the mattress with little ceremony and attempting to arrange him into a position somewhat suitable for sleep. Light is not overly compliant. He whines in the back of his throat, knocking L's hands away. L thinks of getting a warm, wet towel and wiping the excess vomit off of Light's face, but it feels altogether too kind and too foreign, so he just brings him a bucket and turns the lights off.

"My socks," Light mumbles, blinking blearily at L from beneath the ends of his hair.

"What about them?"

"My feet are hot," he says. It's strange in a sad way to see him like this. L thinks he should feel empowered or something, being at such a constitutional advantage, but it just makes him feel weirdly intrusive. Like seeing a hollywood actor without their make-up on, crying on a dirty street corner, and he's the paparazzo snapping the headline photo.

He walks to the end of the bed and slips Light's socks off, setting them on the sheet next to him. "Is that better?" he asks, drawing his thumb along the arch of Light's foot. Like everything about him, it's beautiful.

"Mmmh," Light says, already mostly asleep.

L puts in a call to Watari for the clean up, then goes out into the hallway, closing the door quietly behind him. His head is blurry and flared, but he feels strangely soft in the low light of the early morning, like things aren't half as bleak as he usually pretends they are. Melodrama has been his quiet companion through-out this whole case - a necessary spin to an otherwise too complex story. He'd fashioned good and evil, one for himself and one for Light, but he's been in this business long enough to understand that it's not and never will be that simple. Light is a fragile boy, a boy who doesn't drink, and _evil_ is too simple a descriptor.

Likewise, _good_ does not approach the reality of what L is.

He slumps down the hallway, resolving to find Aiber if he's awake and to wake him up if he's not. Not to apologize, of course - apologizing is not something that L is in the habit of doing - but to make sure he understands that while he is not in any way special or irreplaceable, he is a valuable team member, and one that L would rather not do without. He isn't sure of the truth of either the former or the latter statements, but truth is not what matters in this situation. At this point, the priority is survival.

He's turning a corner, head sorting through a list of meaningless platitudes to attempt to find one with an applicable sentiment, something simple and to the point and not as fruity or romantic as _'I need you,'_ but slightly more affectionate than, _'I'd prefer not to have to fire you,'_ when he feels it. Just a prick on his neck, nothing much - and then the pain is sharp, jabbing into the vein with a sick shakiness. He swerves, hand going to his neck, but it's not fast enough, it's already in him, already licking through his blood stream and making him dizzy and imprecise. He can't see anyone, but he can feel it, there's someone there, someone watching him as his legs give out and his vision goes very dark and then very bright and then -

He's floating, he thinks. He's just floating. He watches the ground below him get smaller, fading out into nothing. He fades with it.

* * *

It's all very well to feel sick to your stomach in a metaphorical sense and Light, given the amount of time he spends around L, is well-practiced at it. It's a completely different matter to be legitimately sick to your legitimate stomach and legitimately need to throw up.

He's halfway to the bathroom before he's fully awake and has a very near miss with the doorframe, navigating it just in time to lean over the toilet and vomit spectacularly. He hears the knocking then, realizes it's what must have woken him in the first place, but can't be bothered to conjure up a polite response as he barely manages to hold himself up, breathing heavily. His head feels like a fish tank and his mouth tastes like a beach towel and he wants nothing more than to go back to sleep.

His feet are cold and he doesn't know where his socks are.

The knock comes again.

"Hold on!" Light calls, his voice wavering, then cracking on the words. He flushes the toilet and brushes his teeth, then brushes his teeth again for good measure. He can't get it up to floss at the moment. By the time he's blundering over to the door, his mouth still tastes like sick, just with a minty twist.

Watari is neatly groomed, his suit well-pressed, eyeing Light with a distantly curious expression, and it makes him overly aware of how terrible he must look. Where the fuck is L? If L were here, Light might still look put-together in comparison.

"What is it?" he says, trying to be as polite as possible while feeling as if he would be best suited to curling up on the floor and dying.

Watari's mustache twitches. "I apologize for disturbing you, Yagami," he says, not sounding particularly apologetic, "only I think you had better come and join us downstairs."

And Light thinks a number of things then, scenarios flashing through his frazzled mind and twisting things up, making his chest seize just a little; things like: _they know, they know I'm Kira_ or _they know about L and me_ or _someone's dead_ or _Misa fucked up, yes, Misa probably fucked up_ - but the thought that he settles on, the one that drowns out all the others, is comparatively simple: _where is L?_

* * *

Yagami looks like shit. It's a rather unusual occurrence and Aiber cherishes it dearly, leaned as he is against the wall, back a twist of angry tension. Wedy is next to him, half a shield and half a voice of reason.

"Don't do anything stupid," she tells him, tone low and surprisingly sober for someone so consistently inebriated.

L would have asked her to define _stupid_, would have said the word means nothing unless the speaker's definition of intelligent action is first explained and the caveats provided by the situation at hand are taken into account. That _"Don't do anything stupid,"_ is, in itself, a stupid and vastly imprecise thing to say. Wedy would have told him to get bent. Aiber would have probably wholeheartedly concurred.

But L is not here, _L is not here_, and that is why Aiber's back is knotted and why his brow feels stuck stiff on his face, why he can't seem to quite laugh any of it off.

"What do you mean 'gone'?" Light asks, face a perfect mask of pretty-boy cluelessness that's not even offset by the sharp exhaustion in his eyes or the rumpled, slept-in look of his clothes.

The chief's sigh is heavy and his face is lined and he has the eyes of someone well past retirement age. "Watari-san says that he's scanned the entire building, and we sent out Aizawa and Ide to do a sweep in person, but no one's seen him in hours."

"What about his bedroom," Light says immediately, "there are no cameras in there."

"Checked," Watari says. "Floor-to-ceiling. He's gone."

"He can't just be _gone_, he has to be somewhere. What about the helicopters, the limousine? Maybe he went out."

"All accounted for."

"Well, then maybe he went for a walk," Matsuda puts in, wearing his happy-face grin and twisting his fingers sheepishly as he speaks. "I mean - I know it's the middle of the Kira investigation, but maybe he just needed some fresh air. That happens sometimes, right?"

"Not to L," Aiber puts in from the sidelines, staying slumped where he is as all of their eyes jerk his way. Yagami's expression is one of fixed displeasure, but curious all the same. He really does look slightly panicked, as if this whole thing isn't easily traceable back to him. "I can tell you what did happen, though," Aiber continues, partly just to keep his audience enraptured, enunciating the word with a delicious air of performance. "Kira."

"That's not - that can't," Matsuda starts, stopping soon after.

The room is still, the dull hum of computers becoming loud in the ensuing silence as the investigators look around at one another with a vague sort dying hope, as if L is at any moment going to jump out from behind a corner, yell, _"Just kidding!"_ and everything will be okay again. It doesn't happen.

Aiber hates them all terribly - not just Yagami, _all_ of them. They wear their dull grey suits and they stand there dumbly, uselessly, without even the tiniest edge of understanding as to what this all truly means.

Not just that there is no one left to stop Kira - who cares about Kira? - but that _L is gone_. L and his boney knees and jagged frame and the way he would smile without his mouth at the things Aiber says, the way he'd arch and twist and get solemn and quiet, reflective and far away, as if there was a little room inside of his head where he would go, locking the rest of the world out. His skin had always been warm to the touch, pallid and removed, but warm like a living thing, pretty in unpracticed ways. Aiber's fucked hollywood girls and trust-fund boys, bodies to fill the spaces that L had carved out in him, trying to recreate that one moment.

It had been before Argentina, before he'd been caught, before he'd known that L was investigating him at all. It had been in someone else's house, on someone else's spare mattress. It had been a sunny afternoon, and L's hair had tickled patterns against Aiber's spine. He'd quoted some very famous French writer who Aiber has never read or cared to. He'd fallen asleep - had been faking it, of course, and as much had become obvious after the fact - but in Aiber's memory, in that moment, L had fallen asleep with Aiber's hand around his wrist.

"I can't accept that," Light is saying, loudly, in a stoically earnest voice that sounds like he's trying out for his secondary school play. "We don't - we don't know anything yet."

The officers are nodding. Watari looks grim and unconvinced, but he says nothing. Aiber reaches over, plucking Wedy's cigarette from right between her fingers and taking a long drag. The smoke twists horribly through his throat. _A terrible habit._ He hands if back to her, blowing out as he moves across the room, slowly at first, casual as ever. It's not until he's practically in front of Light that he throws his hand out, grabbing him by the collar of yesterday's shirt and jerking him forward in one swift, uncompromising movement.

"Where is he?" he demands, shaking Light into an artless stumble.

"What are you - " Light gasps, trying to keep his balance. "Aiber-san, calm down for a moment." His eyes are wide and wild and ingenue, flicking around the room, mapping out exits or coming up with a plan, giving shape to the lies.

"Cut the cute stuff, Kira," Aiber grits, tugging him around by the scruff of his neck. "How did you get his name? Did he give it to you?" The thought's been swirling in him for some time, formless and without cause, but there's just this niggling fancy that he _could have_ - not because he'd fallen, not because Light had truly charmed him, but as a part of the plan; it isn't an inconceivable possibility. "Did you ask him for it nicely?"

"Hey, cut it out. Light's not Kira!" Matsuda says, pulling weakly at Aiber's arm. He shakes him off easily.

Aiber has to do this because no one else will, because they're buried safe under the self-imposed delusion that Light Yagami is harmless, is incapable of the cruel and unusual. If L were here it would be different, but L's not here - not dead, though, _not dead_, can't be - so Aiber steps up to the plate, intends to hit the ball out of the park.

Watari's hand is firm on his shoulder, aged and gnarled and familiar. "Aiber-san," he says, a thin air of understanding in his voice, "please. That isn't helping."

Aiber looks at Yagami, ignoring the faces around him. His lip is scabbed, still healing from the blow, and he's probably marked up pretty badly underneath his clothes. Shin, gut, face: three of the most effective points, genitalia aside - and although L hadn't specifically cautioned him against debilitating the goods, he'd done him the courtesy of avoidance, anyhow. Still, even bruised and bloodshot and rumpled, Light is still fundamentally one of the best looking people Aiber's seen in his life, probably the best L has ever touched. He understands the fascination, to a certain degree - but not beyond, not far enough to believe that L would willingly submit not only his body, but his life to a pretty kid with some big ideas.

L is in hiding, maybe. Or kidnapped. Maybe he's been kidnapped.

The world is made of _maybe_'s, though, and if L were here he would tell Aiber that he's being self-deluding and illogical, betting on them like that.

Matsuda is red-faced and harried, stepping back out of Aiber's immediate reach with an expression of great suspicion on his face. The chief's mustache is quirked disapprovingly. Mogi, as usual, is silent.

From her perch, Wedy breathes out a thin plume of smoke, sending it up towards the high vents in the ceiling. "Where'd you get the booze?" she asks, eyes rolling lazily to Light, and Aiber thanks God, Jesus, and the whole shebang for her low words and clever tone, if only because she's undoubtedly on his side, subtly or not. "You're hungover, aren't you?"

Light swallows, straightening his shirt slightly - the perfect guilty teen - and nods. "It's was yours," he says, "the alcohol. L said he thought you wouldn't mind."

"Light?" his father says, suitably shocked and appalled, like being accused of murder pales in comparison to the enormity of underage drinking.

"He said that it was his birthday tomorrow," Light says quietly. "Or today, I guess." This would probably be the point at which he'd stare dolefully out the window, but seeing as the room is windowless, his eyes just catch on the wall, and he stares long and far away as if he can see straight through it. Maybe he can.

The thought would be slightly more ridiculous if, in the last few days, Aiber hadn't been walked - or rather, floated - in on multiple times by a giant, terrifying monster of a thing with a very put-upon expression. If Light is Kira, and Kira deals in Shinigami powers, who knows what else he can do, what other powers he has. Being limited to a notebook, after all, is rather pathetic.

"That's correct," Watari says, confirming L's birthday. Hmm. Aiber hadn't known, isn't quite sure it matters.

"He'd wanted to celebrate," Light says, voice taut with restrained emotion - a typical technique, one Aiber had learned in his earliest acting classes, back when he'd wanted to be in the movies instead of the criminal underworld. "We got drunk, we just talked. It wasn't a big deal," he lies. Always, always lying. "He went back to his room sometime last night and that was the last time I saw him. I can't believe - he's got to be somewhere. We've got to find him."

Light looks like he could go for several more minutes of soliloquizing, but Aiber doesn't let him get that far, just crosses his arms and says, "Yeah, okay, but has anyone seen the Shinigami?"

* * *

He'd hidden in a luggage compartment once, just curled up and stowed away with the baggage, arm bent awkwardly against someone's ski gear for several long hours. When the plane had been in the process of being hijacked, he'd knocked until he'd been let out by one of the frazzled hostages and put two bullets in the chest of the guard that had been left to watch the passengers. The body had fallen sideways, landing across a row containing a single mother and her two young sons. L had left them to sort it out for themselves, stepping into the cockpit to take out the other two hijackers. They'd given up easily and L hadn't even needed to sleep with anyone to solve that case.

Despite the impression he likes to give, that's not all the investigating her does - sex is the 40 in the 60/40 odds, and he only recalls those cases more clearly because they're the ones that stick in his mind, that would keep him awake at night if he didn't keep himself awake. There are also hackers and hitmen and corporate espionage, where the perpetrator is not truly connected to their crime, doesn't need to be investigated i_in carne/i_.

He thinks about his cases, thinks about the bodies and the hands, hips and torsos and ears - the forgettable, imprecise parts of people that he memorizes and catalogues and forms extensive theories based upon. He thinks about Light's hips and torso and ears, thinks about Beyond's. Tries to remember why - in this half-haze, where all he can see is a gritty, blank space with a few cracks, a thin layer of dust - why he had thought of that time on the plane, that wrenching pain in his shoulder.

Then he shifts slightly and realizes he's feeling something eerily similar now.

He blinks his eyes open quickly, suddenly, gaze flitting around rapidly, trying to take it all in at a time, like one massive gulp of water that he can't quite swallow. Nothing fits together and then, strangely - typical of the human senses - it all does, and L's arm is tied up above his head and he is lying in a small, dim room with cheap lamplight and a massive Shinigami staring at him.

"Hello," he says. His voice feels thick and it cracks through his throat, setting his head to pounding.

She says nothing.

He is on a bed. He is chained to a bed, and it's sort of a familiar feeling and sort of an amusing one, because it feels very maudlin and fake, like something that would happen to a detective in a movie instead of to an actual detective. The room is sparse and forgettable: off-white walls and cheap veneer furniture and very little else. There are no sheets on the bed, the mattress is generic. The only thing in the place that is at all notable is Rem, gangly and tendinous and the sickly purple-grey of a dead body. She still says nothing, cat-eye on him with mild bewilderment, as if his existence is slightly troubling to her.

He cycles through his last thoughts, remembers taking Light's socks off and putting him to bed, remembers the hall and the quiet feeling of morning, remembers floating.

"You brought me here?" he asks. He's seen the Shinigami go through walls before; it's not a stretch that she could bring him through walls with her, could have transported him easily, could have put him to sleep easier.

She doesn't reply, so he tries again. "You used some sort of Shinigami power to knock me out?"

"I stabbed you with a needle full of drugs," she says, her low, dull voice a shock.

"Oh." L's eyes flick back up to the crack on the ceiling, trail along the edges of the room, looking for weak points. "That will do it, too, I suppose."

There are no windows and only one door, which doesn't look particularly solid, but even if he were able to maneuver his way out of the handcuffs and break it down, he doubts that Rem would let him get far. He drops back, hair falling around him as his head hits the mattress - no sheets, no pillows - and tries to position himself so that his chained arm has a bit less pressure on it as he waits for Light to arrive.

* * *

The night air is cold on Light's face, and the thick press of bodies on the Tokyo streets is familiar but uncomfortable, a world away from what he'd grown used to. There are bright lights, heavy smells, planet Earth alive and uncompromising in front of him, dirty and fractured and loud, a parade of human weakness.

He follows the map on his phone to the apartment that he'd had Misa buy - paid in cash, fake name, black wig; untraceable - hasn't ever been here and is afraid he won't be able to find it, that he won't get there in time, that he'd miscalculated and that _everything_ is ruined. He digs into his pocket for the key that Rem has dropped on his nightstand yesterday, through the wall behind his bed, invisible on the recordings. The key to the lock that holds back the sky, the light and the dark and all of the things that are worth anything. He twists it in, pulls the knob, has to give the rusted hinges a shove to get the door to open.

There's a small living room, a smaller kitchen, the bare necessities of furniture and not much else. A door, a long staircase, another small room, a hallway, and another door. He undoes the lock, hands shaking slightly and this is it, it all comes down to this. If this room is empty, then everything is ruined, then nothing will work out the way it ought - then _L_ -

No, no, don't think it, don't think things that hurt.

He opens the door, quicker than he means to, stands in the doorway and breathes out long and heavy, wallows in the relief.

L is on the bed. L, in his worn jeans and overlarge shirt, hair a mess, skin fading into the mattress. He sits up slowly, meets Light's eyes with his familiarly blank stare, accusatory in its absence of feeling.

Light loves him.

Light loves him the way you love a man who burns down your house and murders your family, who rapes you and pillages the wreckage. Light loves him so much and so often and with such tremendous force that it has become a part of him, like his eyes or his ears or his hands. Light is in the doorway and Light loves him.

L is on the bed and L's voice is hollow when he says, "So," tilting his head to the side slightly, hair falling across his eyes in a deflated slant. Light says nothing.

He turns to Rem, gives her a look that's meant to grind down deep, make it clear how _not happy_ he is. He holds out his hand. The Midazolam is in a dark, mostly full bottle and the needle goes in quickly, withdrawing just enough. He flicks the body, the way they do on television, spritzes a bit out, and takes slow steps over to the bed.

"So," he returns, holding up the needle, making it obvious what he intends to do with it.

L's watches the trajectory of his arm, but doesn't make a move to stop him, and bends easily when Light takes him by the wrist, stretching out the skin and pressing the needle to the crook of his elbow. He looks at him with eyes that think they know so much and says, with half a smile twitching onto his face, "You've really fucked yourself, Kira."

His crooked amusement wilts as Light injects him, drug flooding his veins, slipping into his system. He slows, stops and starts, the deep breaths of sleep taking over, and then he's just a body, unconscious and incapable.

Light only half understands him, the rest is just white noise, static in the background of his quiet victory. L is here and L is not dead, just sleeping. There's a clawing, hateful feeling in his throat, and he resents L _so much_ for being a thing that cannot be dead, a thing that he loves.

It's a ridiculous word. It feels ridiculous when he thinks it, when he rolls it on his tongue. _Love_. Misa says she loves him but that's different, has to be different, because Misa isn't capable of feeling what Light feels for L, no one is, no one could be. Just him, just L. He leans down, wants to press his lips to L's temple, wants to strip him and curl against his body, because it all feels so weighted and important and _necessary_.

His hands are maybe shaking, or maybe he's just imagining it.

He breathes out. Sets down the needle.

Rem is waiting out in the hallway when he goes out and finally, as he closes the door behind him, Light feels like there's enough air in the room for him to speak, to think straight. He shakes his head, trying to knock off the smile that's painting itself across his face, but then he's laughing, he's just absolutely laughing. He's vaguely hit by the image he must make, laughing to himself - and a god of death - alone in the shit hallway of the shit apartment he'd had his fake girlfriend buy so that he could keep his real boyfriend there. Boyfriend? That's a terrible word for L. This is a terrible situation.

Light can't stop laughing.

Rem is looking at him like _he's_ the large, sludgy beast in the room, and so he wipes his eyes, shakes his head once more, and leans back against the door, feeling light and brilliant and unstoppable.

"November 5th," he says slowly, letting the jovial expression drop slowly from his face. "I told you to take him on November 5th."

Light knows that Shinigami can roll their eyes, because he's seen Ryuk do it plenty of times. Rem doesn't quite, but she looks as if she wants to. "And I told you that I do not know what a November 5th _is_," she says, slow and dully forceful, the way she always sounds. "The human calendar is strange and imprecise. He was alone, there was an opening, I took it. This is what you wanted, isn't it?"

Light grits his teeth and stands up straighter. "What about the cameras?" he says.

"There are blind spots."

Rem has her uses, but her stoic impudence is unbearable and Light feels his good mood fading fast, mind shooting through all the things he needs to do. Get his notebook back, convince Misa to trade for the Eyes again, keep the taskforce occupied. The judgements. So many people, so many useless, unworthy people who don't deserve to have been born, and L is drugged up and chained down behind this door and how is that fair?

The world is not fair. The world is all wrong and Light has to fix it, has to set everything right. He squeezes the bridge of his nose, feels exhausted already.

"Fine," he says, "fine. Just guard the door."

He doesn't look at Rem, ignores everything - the quiet click of the lock and soft sound of the carpeting beneath his feet and the low light of the room - just sinks down next to L on the other side of the bed, the side he always sleeps on, and closes his eyes.

The room doesn't smell like L yet. It will.

* * *

L wakes abruptly, as he always does. His body goes stock-still and tensed for attack, then loosens slowly as he becomes aware of his surroundings. Blank walls, no sheets, shoulder cramp. Light's left arm tossed over his chest and his nose presses against L's neck, breathing softly in and out. His body is warm and his hair is tossed appealingly in his eyes and he is really such an attractive boy.

He's also just kidnapped L.

It's kind of hilarious, actually. Kira has kidnapped him. Kira kills with little discretion, takes down anyone who gets in his way without a second thought or a doubt in his mind, and he's _kidnapped_ L. It's so terribly naive. As if it's this easy, as if you can just scavenge away the things you like, keep them in a cage and feed them scraps and call them yours and expect no one to come looking. As if this isn't the single _stupidest_ thing that Kira could possibly have done.

"You idiot," he says gently, voice cracking slightly -likely from the unnecessary sedative use. "You beautiful, shining idiot."

This is not a Kira thing to do. It's not exacting or precise or brilliant in any way. It's a plan thrown together by someone unsure and afraid, someone with no other choice. But Kira has had plenty of choices, could have - _should_ have - killed him, or at least made plans to kill him. Kidnapping draws too much attention, throws suspicion on everyone with personal access to him, makes the crime far easier to trace. Kira wouldn't do this, would never -

Light Yagami, though, he might.

Just a boy, just a silly little boy with big ideas about things he doesn't understand. A boy who thinks that L is important.

He sleeps peacefully and when L slips out from his hold, he only shifts slightly, breath puffing out on a tiny groan. There's a fuzz, a head-rush, and L steadies himself with his free hand against the wall. It's the drugs, two shots of something he can't identify - some form of Benzodiazepine, maybe? - injected over a relatively short amount of time, on an empty stomach and with more than a few traces of alcohol in the bloodstream.

He glances at Light, who's completely out, and realizes that he's probably still sleeping off the hangover.

Good, good, that should give L time. The handcuff chain is short, not much longer than a normal pair of police handcuffs, but sturdy enough that it's not going to break without excessive force. That's fine, it's fine. He can do this. He's done this before and he can do this now. Gritting his teeth, he folds his hand, makes it as small as possible and slowly starts to maneuver it out of the cuff. It chafes, metal splitting the skin, and if he can just bend his fingers - just a little more - he can -

"Don't bother," Light says silkily, blinking lazily up at him from the bed.

L freezes for just a moment, like a child caught doing something naughty, before quickly resuming the effort. The skin is splitting, cuts warming his wrist, but it does't matter. Watari can bandage him when he gets back. Light watches him, eyes narrowing, the folds of his shirt shifting smooth against his chest as he moves. He watches L curiously, as if he doesn't fully understand, as if wanting to run away from someone who's drugged and incapacitated you doesn't really compute in his mind.

"Come on," he says, sitting up. "You'll get blood everywhere and I'll have to clean up after you, like I always do. Rem's outside, anyway." He yawns, toned arms stretching above his head. "She'd catch you before you could make it two feet. And then there are several more doors and several more deadbolts, and Shinigami are hard to outrun. So, don't bother, okay? Just come back to bed."

L is standing in the middle of a foreign room, nearly dislocating several of his fingers in an effort to get loose. L has been kidnapped and Light is his kidnapper and Light is looking at him like he expects L to roll over, to just crawl into his lap or something. There's a strange disconnect from reality, as if this is all some big game, a role-play or something. Like with the choking - terrifying, in its way, but Light had been so far removed he hadn't even noticed or cared.

This is not good. This is a brilliant boy using the world like a plaything. The prodigal son with a stick of dynamite.

L stops. He isn't actually getting anywhere with the cuff, and the biting pain is rather uncomfortable, besides. He just stops and says, "You're actually mad, aren't you?" He flicks his eyes sharply at Light, tilts his head. Light just smiles, and he doesn't get it, he really doesn't get it all. "Like, stark raving," L continues, starting to pace. He can barely move on such a short chain but he's antsy, can't be still, this is _all wrong_. "You _kidnapped_ me, Light. It's a stupid move. It's a stupid thing to do, you understand that, right?"

His voice is a quiet seethe, but it gets louder as he speaks - like talking to a deaf person, like thinking that raising your voice is suddenly going to make them understand. It doesn't work.

Light waves a hand, leans against the headboard. "Don't be so overdramatic, it doesn't suit you."

He looks oddly self-satisfied, like L's panic is what he's been waiting for, but it's not the right kind of panic.

"They're going to catch you," he says, walking up to Light, going to the very edge of the bed, then stopping, like he can't move any further. "What's the idea here? Go to work every day with the investigation team, and then what? Come home to me, waiting for you with a pot roast and a martini?"

He's not actually sure that Light has ever eaten a pot roast in his life, or had any desire to, but L can't quite think of the Japanese equivalent at this point and it's semantics anyway. The point is, this is a snow globe. Light has built them a snow globe to live in. Their old world - the headquarters, the bedroom, the chain - was coming to an end, looming past its due date, and instead of accepting that and doing what needs to be done - killing L, taking the Death Note, whatever the plan is - he's trying to extend the honeymoon period on into real life. But it doesn't work like that.

The snow globe always breaks at some point. L always gets his man - or woman, child, whatever. Then it ends and he moves onto the next one.

Light is not allowed to be his suspect forever.

Light doesn't seem to understand this, though. It doesn't even seem to vaguely strike him. He just snorts slightly at the pot roast comment and says, "Well, you don't have to cook, if that's what you're getting worked up about."

L shakes his head, wishes for once that he was wearing shoes so that he could stomp his feet, make his point loudly and with little room to be misinterpreted.

"You stupid boy," he says. "Murder is one thing. Writing names in a notebook is _easy_, all you need to know is how to spell. Keeping a living, breathing person as your prisoner? That's a lot different. People eat, Light. They eat and they shit and they drink water, they need exercise and mental stimulus and - "

"Don't act like I haven't thought this through," Light says, frowning. That's something, at least. "I _know_ - "

"No, you don't," L says, finally crossing that invisible barrier and leaning over onto the bed, one knee up, almost looming onto Light. "You don't know anything about human beings, just like you don't know anything about emotions, or how to navigate them. Most people?" he says, stabbing two long fingers into Light's chest. "They feel the things you're feeling? They take the person out for coffee, maybe to a movie. They don't chain them to a bed in a basement somewhere."

It's a call out, an actual spoken accusation, and the crime is affection.

Light looks at him with wide, boyish eyes, but the wonderment is draining out of them and reality is setting in. This is what he's bought and paid for, this is what he's stolen away - not a pet, not another Misa, someone who will sit and stay and roll over when he tells them to, but a real person. L is a real person, a human being with a past, with dark parts, with responsibilities and people who depend on him. Light doesn't understand that and he doesn't want it. He wants a doll, something clever and pliable, something to play with and own, but not to know. Not to _understand_.

That's fine. L doesn't need to be understood. He just needs his bodily autonomy, at the very least.

It isn't quite clicking for Light, though, because as brilliant has he is, his intelligence lies in the clinical, the bare facts of things. Emotions don't seem to factor in for him, and certainly not L's.

He huffs, kneels up in bed so that he and L are of level height. "As if you're some great pioneer of social decorum?" he snaps. "You physically chained me to your wrist. For _three months_."

"That was for a criminal investigation," L says, tone getting wild, out of hand, "not because I realized I would need someone to fuck after taking over the world." There's too much in his voice, too much feeling. He's showing skin, he's chafing himself raw and he knows it, but he can't seem to stop. "There's Light Yagami and there's Kira." He holds out his palms, two sides of a scale." There's Ryuzaki and there's L. You don't get both. Either choose coffee dates and movies or Shinigami and mass murder. It's one or the other. Either kill me and play god or - or go back to being what you were. Be him. Be Light Yagami."

The words come out in a rush and they hurt, they _hurt_, because -

_This is someone he doesn't want to leave_.

"I am Light Yagami," Light say, grabbing one of L's hands. It's the free one, the one without the chain. His fingers are warm and familiar, feel just like they always have, but it's not the same.

L pulls out of his reach, moving so quickly he almost knocks himself over, held up only by the tense strain of the chain. "_You're not_. He - You're not."

"I'm him, he's me," Light says, palm coming up to cup L's face, "there's no difference. There's no difference. Look at me."

L looks. His lip is still scabbed and his eyes are more tired than usual, worn around the edges, but there's that tiny, clever spark - a wild, radiant thing that lives inside him, is him. A thing that can play god and play him well. A thing that L hadn't wanted to leave.

"You love me," Light says.

He just says it, just outright lays it down, like an undeniable fact. But it's such an immature act, to tell someone that they love you, to insist upon it. It should be pathetic, but the way Light says it, the assurance in his voice, is strong and pulling, tearing at all the seams. It's a mandate, an order from a king to a subject.

L keeps his expression flat.

"I liked you," he says. "Past tense. _Love_ is such a strong word, and you might be clever, but you're not clever enough to know what it means. And I hate when people use words that they don't understand."

The hand on his cheek gets rough, fingers clutching, and then Light yanks him forward, face first.

"_You_ don't understand," he says, voice a determined grit. "But you will. Look, I know you're frightened. I know this is all different, but it's not really, it's just the same. A different room, a different bed, a different chain, but I'm still me, you're still you." He moves close, so close his lips are almost on L's cheek and L is disgusting because he wants them to be. "You love me. And we don't have to play games anymore, we don't have to tip-toe around the truth."

Maybe L should be shocked, maybe he should be bowled over by the enormity of the moment, but he's taken it as a given for so long that the confession is almost anticlimactic. It's just another fact about Light, likes how he takes his tea or what kind of music he listens to. _Mass murderer_ is just one of many qualities.

"Kira," he says, not overly slowly or quietly or importantly. He just says it,

He half-expects Light to toss his head back, to do one of those manically villainous laughs. He doesn't, doesn't even smirk. He smiles, though, looks almost chipper. "Yes."

L supposes he's been waiting ages to openly brag about it.

* * *

**tbc.**

* * *

**end notes: **I really doubt this is an unforeseeable plot twist, seeing as it's right up there in the summary. This is actually what I originally intended to write when I started this thing (your typical 'light kidnaps L and rapes him and takes over the world~' fic, except with less rape and more belligerent domesticity.) In my original outline, Light was meant to do the kidnapping in, like, chapter three, but then I got sidetracked by actually giving them a solid relationship foundation before the whole imprisonment thing. (pshhh, I know, who cares about that, right?)

Anyway, I hope you're looking forward to some domestic bliss! Or, you know, more fist fighting and weird sex. Either way, thank you for reading.


	9. the boy dies

**warnings:** violence, crass language, smoking. seriously, everybody's always smoking. non-explicit gore. really fucked-up dynamics?

**notes:** Welcome to the second of what is probably going to be three arcs. If you made it this far, congratulations. Nothing really happens in this chapter, which appears to be a theme with this story, but alas. Thank you to every lovely person who read/reviewed/favorited. You all keep me chugging along when I might have otherwise driven straight off the tracks weeks ago.

* * *

**chapter nine - the boy dies.**

* * *

_"When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object."_

- Milan Kundera, _The Unbearable Lightness of Being_

* * *

It's cold today.

They've got central heating and all, but Matt leaves the window propped open to flick his ash out by turns, keeping the smoke from staining the room thick and harsh. Roger knows he smokes - everyone knows he smokes - but no one says it outright. No one ever approaches the many behavioral deficiencies in Wammy's students, provided they keep their grades up. Matt smokes constantly, blows all of his allowance on cigarettes, just waiting for the day when third place won't be sufficient compensation for the habit. A quiet rebellion; he's daring them to kick him out.

He's daring himself to figure out somewhere else to go.

The carpet is cool and rough under his back and the floor shakes as Mello stomps in. His hair is in his eyes and he looks like he's about to cry, which is sort of scary, in a nervous _oh god, what should I say, what should I do with my hands_ kind of way.

He steps over Matt, goes straight to the closet and pulls out a backpack, the one they used to use on hikes. Half the zippers are broken and there's gum stuck to the inside, somewhere. Matt sighs out some smoke, taps the butt into his empty mug and sits up. He doesn't say anything because all of the things he thinks of are obvious and also completely stupid.

"I'm leaving," Mello announces, not turning around, just haphazardly tossing clothes into the bag.

Too many shirts, Matt notices. Not enough trousers. Is he even packing socks? He watches Mello's hands move, quick and unsystematic, he's shivering slightly, keeps pulling his sleeves down lower. Nervous. He's nervous. He's leaving.

"Oh," Matt says.

Which is the worst possible thing that anyone has ever said in response to anything ever, especially because _this is exactly what he wants_. Right? He wants to leave, has wanted to leave since he came to Wammy's as a kid, only Mello - Mello was, _is_, the only person worth being anywhere with and Mello loves it here, always has, and so Matt had stayed. But he'd harbored fantasies, the way everyone does - tiny, silly things - that one day they'd go together, set out on the road, take London by storm or go to the US or go anywhere, really. He'd just been waiting for Mello to say the word.

And now Mello is saying the word and all Matt can say is, "Oh."

Mello doesn't turn around, so Matt stands up, just stands there, fingers flicking at his lighter. After a moment, he comes up with another word. "Why?"

"Because," Mello practically yells, spinning to face Matt, "it's time for me to grow the fuck up."

"Oh," Matt says again, because what else is he meant to say? _Calm down, you batshit loon, calm down and let me stroke your hair like when we were little_. "Should I come with you?"

"No," Mello says.

He wipes at his eyes, and he's crying, he's actually crying and this is all of Matt's late-night wank fantasies plastered right in front of him. Mello used to cry all the time when they were kids, throw tantrums, throw punches, and just fucking scream and sob when things weren't going his way. And things have never gone his way. Matt used to grab him by the wrist or the ends of his fingers, pull him under the north stairs with blankets and cups of cocoa, and he wouldn't say anything, wouldn't have to speak, would just listen to Mello tell him quietly about all of his plans, about all of the things he was going to do, the ways he meant to make L proud, make the world understand _what he was_.

Brilliant, better than Near, better than everyone. The best.

Of course, at age five - or six or seven or eight - Matt hadn't quite understood that curling up in a warm, confined space with Mello pressed casually up against him was the kind of thing you have to remember, to catalog every touch and glance and hot breath, because that stuff will all become monumentally _important_ later in life.

And Mello is crying again, and so Matt should take him by the hand and keep him close, help him feel better, do anything - in his head he would, in his head he always does - but he can't seem to move, can't seem to say anything but, "Oh."

Then Mello is wiping at his eyes, zipping up his backpack, pulling on his boots - _leaving_. And Matt just stands there. He flicks his lighter on and off, tries to think of something to say and comes up empty. Mello's almost to the bedroom doorway and Matt thinks, isn't someone going to stop him? Where's Roger, where the fuck is Roger, where the fuck is anyone with fucking functioning limbs and words and thoughts? Mello is leaving -

And then he stops, turns around, walks back. He reaches out his hand to Matt's and for a split-second all the live-wires ignite and everything is close and warm and wonderful - and then Matt realizes that Mello is just taking his lighter. He looks at it, shakes his head, and chucks it out of the open in window.

Matt watches it go, still can't quite form words.

"Stop fucking smoking. You're gonna get - you'll - just stop, okay?" Mello says, eyes wide and shining and oddly serious.

Matt means to tell him to mind his own business, means to tell him to please, please stay, but just nods and says, "Okay."

And then Mello is gone. It takes a while for anyone to realize and an even longer time for them to get it together to send out a few cars to start looking for him. One of the teachers asks Matt if he wants to come, but he just shakes his head. When they're gone, he reaches into his nightstand drawer, pulls out his spare lighter and sparks it up.

The smoke is sharp and calming, the room is cold.

* * *

Watari pours her a gin and Wedy drinks it in one long sip. She feels like hell and her hair is a mess and it says something about the desperation of the situation that she doesn't bother to fix it.

"I cannot make you stay," Watari tells her, calm and solemn and overly polite. Most of the time it's charming, but right now the withdrawn butler routine is just making her skin itch, making everything more difficult to deal with. She wishes he'd spit out the words, wishes he'd be blunt and awful and say what he means. L would.

"No," she says into her empty glass, "you can't."

Aiber's hand is heavy and it hits the table with too loud a sound. He lifts it immediately, like grappling with himself, balling his fingers into a fist and grunting out the words between his teeth. "Maybe he can't, but I sure fucking can."

Wedy smiles rough, trips her fingers along the gun at her hip. "Oh, can you?"

She taps her glass. Watari pours her more gin. She feels ugly.

This is an ugly situation. L is gone, likely on his death bed if he's not already worm's meat, and the kid who killed him is prancing around the office like he's lord and commander as all the empty-headed suits follow his every word like law. Watari's not falling for it and Aiber can barely stand still for a moment without putting his fist through an expensive piece of surveillance equipment, but what are they really going to do? What do they expect her to do?

Wedy goes where the money is, but L is dead and they are in the wreckage of it. She's not going to run headlong into a burning building for someone who's just charred bone by this point. There's a difference between risk and suicide, and she'd rather be ugly than dead.

"So you'll just run away?" Aiber says.

His hair is a mess, too, falling in thick ruffles over his eyes. He badly needs a shave. He looks like he had the first time she'd met him - Thailand, out on the street in front of the hotel where L had been staying, arguing with one of the clerks. It'd been dark, streets wet from the afternoon's rain, and there'd been mud on his leather shoes. _"I need to see him,"_ he'd kept yelling. _"You don't understand, I need to."_

She'd called L, convinced him to let him up. _"There's a pathetic European splashing around in the dirt down here and I think he belongs to you."_ He'd slept on the sofa while she and L had gotten to work on the case.

His eyes are wide and blue and desperate now, and she remembers, quite sharply and suddenly, the ways in which he can be pretty. Take away the performance, the shit cologne and the fast-talking, and he's just a sad thing like the rest of them. A fully grown man with no idea who or what he is, no idea how to properly dress himself. He looks like that now.

If Wedy were a better person, she'd stay.

She sets down her glass and turns on here heel. "I guess so," she says, and runs away. There's a flight to the States leaving in two hours and she's going to be on it.

* * *

L is bleeding again. He's been bleeding a lot lately. Light's not sure if it's because of the metaphorical resonance of suffering for a greater purpose - a death on the cross without the actual crucifixion - or if he's really just that convinced that he'll one day manage to slip out of the handcuffs.

His wrist is chafed to bits, blood sliding down his arm, dirtying the metal. He sits there, staring at the cuts like he doesn't comprehend them. Light sighs and sets down his shopping.

"You've really got to stop doing that," he says, moving to sit down next to L on the bed. He'd put on sheets yesterday, added a blanket and some pillows, tried to make him comfortable, but it all looks only vaguely mussed, barely touched. L is a terrible guest just like he is terrible at most things. "If I take the cuff off and switch it to the other wrist, will you try to escape?"

L does something like roll his eyes, which is annoying, but also comfortingly familiar. "Yes."

Light huffs, takes his arm and examines the cuts, the places where the skin's been worn away with little tears. He doesn't know what to do. This isn't at all like his fantasies. L is meant to be quivering with weakness, to be offering himself up to Light, begging for forgiveness, and then they're meant to have violent sex and confess their eternal love, and at some point in all that L's supposed to realize the error of his ways and join up as the high priest of the church of Kira, or something. It had seemed completely plausible to Light during the late nights, with only his hand for company. Now it just feels slightly stupid.

He goes out of the room to wet some paper towels and resolves to purchase a first aid kit for the apartment, for moments just such as these. It's oddly domestic, in a way, if he ignores the fact that his housemate isn't there of his own volition. Light hadn't been chained to L for all those months by choice either, not really. Any time he starts to feel bad about any of this, he remembers that it's L and that L, for all his ephemeral perfection, is rather more scum than not.

He wipes L's wrist clean, gently, but not overly so, and then wraps it up in a cloth to keep the cuff from digging in too much. L says nothing and Light doesn't know what to say, finds himself trailing his fingers through the ends of L's hair more often than not, which is both calming and distracting in equal measure.

It all feels different than it had. Through this lens, it's almost predatory; L is the object and Light is viewer, touching and examining and contorting, and L abides it either out of the solemn detachment that comes of experience with being examined and contorted, or else just because he's in love with Light.

Probably a combination of both.

"Here," Light says when he's done, opening his bag and setting a slice of fresh bakery cake in front of L, "this is for you."

It feels sort of desperate, like he's a schoolboy trying to charm his crush and getting absolutely nowhere. L is increasingly unresponsive and Light thinks, not for the first time, that maybe he should just kill him after all. It would be easy, at this point. He wouldn't need the name, wouldn't even need the notebook, he could live out all of his fantasies here in this room, on this bed. He wonders why he doesn't and hands L a fork.

Watching L eat is kind of like watching one of those nature videos from Africa about lions and gazelles and feeding habits and all that. The sort of thing you should look away from, shouldn't enjoy in some deep, visceral way - but you don't change the channel and you don't look away. There are crumbs on his chin. He's a mess. He's always been a mess and it's nothing new, but it's more off-putting than usual, because now he's a mess that Light owns. He ought to be cleaned up simply be extension.

"It's not as good as Watari's," L says, without bothering to swallow first.

Light rolls his eyes and can't decide what he's feeling. "Are you five?"

"I'm sad," L tells him, setting down his fork and slumping slightly to the side, like the strings that normally hold his marionette body up are being cut, one by one, limbs going loose and defunct. "This a sad room and you're a sad person and it's making me sad."

Light hands him a cup of coffee and sips his tea. "I didn't kill you," he says, casually, like this is the kind of thing that people talk about. He sits cross-legged next to L on the bed. This is practically a date. He makes a mental note to get the place some chairs or something. "I could have and I didn't. You should be thanking me."

"There are plenty of things worse than death, Light," L says, holding out his hand. Light drops a fist-full of sugar packets into it.

"Like what?"

L shrugs. "Like being a sex slave to a mass murderer."

Light freezes, eyebrow raising. Maybe he doesn't need to buy those chairs after all. "Sex slave?" he says. "That's kind of a leap, isn't it?"

"People rarely kidnap and chain me to beds for my health," L says. He's drinking his coffee hurriedly, hasn't really had any caffeine in the last few days, and it's dripping down his chin and onto his chest. Light can't decide if it's attractive or gross. But then, L has always been an revolving mixture of those two things.

Light smiles slightly, feeling kind. "Maybe I just wanted to keep you around for conversation."

"Were that the case, I would think you might have left my clothes on," L says.

Light full out smirks.

He's got a sheet draped haphazardly across his lap, but other than that, L is naked and has been all morning. It slants the dynamics of power rather more sharply that the cuffs do, but kink aside, it's mostly just a matter of necessity. The phrase _sex slave_ has a charming ring to it, but L is not here to be a pet or a kept man. He's meant to be what he's always been, the cool, dark, quiet thing that talks with clever words and laughs without making a sound. He is a jagged monster made of humanity who lives under - and in - Light's bed, always watching and calculating and controlling, grappling for the upper hand.

His earliest memory is of a snowstorm. He likes Scandinavia, types 80 words per minute with two fingers, and sometimes does quadratic equations in his sleep. He bends well, folds into Light's hands and tastes like importance, but he is more than just a body, just like Light is. Light is physically perfect, but being reduced to nothing but his outside, his shiny exterior, is unendingly insulting. L, he's sure, feels the same, especially because his outside is just as flawed as what's within. He is constructed of flaws. He is beautiful. He is Light's.

"They're in the laundry," he tells L, idly picking up a napkin to wipe his chin. "I'll buy you more, I just - " he starts, then stops. "I'm trying to get everything in order. Do you think this is easy?"

Everything else is taken care of: Misa has retrieved the Death Note, the taskforce is eating out of the palm of his hand, Rem is behaving. Maintenance of L is the only thing eating up his time and patience, trying to keep his fed and watered and alive. The latter is particularly difficult, given his various creative attempts at escape. Aside from the mess that is his wrist, he's got several bruises from when Light had had to tackle him in order to keep him from trying to tunnel through the wall beside his bed. The bags under his eyes have gotten heavier, given that the only time that he gets any sleep is when Light drugs him into it. It's only been three days and already it's like trying to corral an especially impudent child who won't eat its vegetables.

"I told you that it wouldn't be," L says, finishing his cake and wiping absently at his mouth. "I don't fully understand why you're doing it."

Light taps his fingers along his chin, imagines stripping L's skin off of his bones, then imagines what L's reaction would be if he told him about it. "But you partly understand," he says. He keeps his thoughts separate from his words, always, even with L.

L slumps back against the headboard, hair snapping back to hit the white walls, a pretty, jagged contrast. He sighs long and casual, like he's not naked and chained up and Light's helpless prisoner.

"You think you're in love with me, I suppose," he says, making it sound like a minor annoyance that needs to be taken care of. "Yes, this happens sometimes. It's rather a bother."

And that's, that's - no. No. He wants to get angry, _is_ getting angry, but he can't because that's exactly what L wants. He wants his power back and if he can't manage it physically, he'll take it emotionally. He's been playing this tactic all along, but Light's only just starting to see it now; with Aiber, with Wedy, with talking about all of his old cases, alluding to all of the people who have been in Light's place before. Trying to make it seem like this - _them_ - is just a usual occurrence, something that happens all the time, something that is not a frightening, calamitous, watch-stopping event in human history.

It is, they are. It's not destiny, it's something more intelligent than that - planetary alignment; a necessity.

"I am not like any of them," Light says, leaning forward to bear down over L the way he knows L secretly likes. "You know I'm not. You know what I am."

He cards his fingers through L's hair, along his jaw, to his shoulder and lower down.

"God?" L says, in a quiet, large voice.

Light feels himself getting closer to L without moving, but he must be, because L is pressed back as far as he can go and his skin is warm against Light's hand, bare and soft and unreal. He feels like mundane deliverance, like something otherworldly and strange dropped into an unremarkable setting. Light loves him.

Everything is so much easier when he doesn't have to keep reminding himself not to.

He practically climbs onto L, covering his body like a blanket, hips lining up awkwardly, and it's not half as sexual as it is just _close_ - like they could become the same person and not notice, fade right into each other. Light loves him, Light loves him and -

And Light's cheek is jammed into, _hard_, and then the floor is flying up and hitting him in the back. Metal, it's metal, L hit him with metal, but there is no metal, except - the chain.

The chain is broken and L is free and his foot slams into Light's chest, knocking the wind out of him, keeping him down. L doesn't say a thing, doesn't look at him, just turns into a black and white shape that heads straight for the door. _The chain is broken_. That is not supposed to happen.

There's a thumping, thick and lodged in Light's ears, and he can't tell if it's the blood pumping through his skull or L repeatedly slamming himself into the doorframe. It's not a strong door, Light thinks. L is a strong man, Light thinks. There's a crack and a thump a moment later and then L's black and white shape is gone and Light is scrambling up from the floor, depth perception gone wonky and swift sounds and shapes knocking through his head. He bumps into the bed frame on the way out, but doesn't let it slow him down. He feels oddly the same as when he'd been hungover.

There's another door at the end of the hall, this one with a deadbolt, and L probably won't be able to get through it, but he might, _he might_, and then everything's poisoned and ruined and gone.

He'd tell them. Light trips over his own feet, socks slipping on the cheap linoleum in a flurry of panic. L would tell them everything and they would know and they would stop him, kill him. He'd have to kill them, all of them, his father and the team, Watari, Wedy, Aiber - and wouldn't that be fun? - _all_ of them. He'd have to erase all the servers, destroy anything incriminating. He'd have to raze the world, and it's _not time yet_.

He pads along the hall, almost caught up to L, and at that moment he understands what L has been talking about. This is dangerous. _He_ is dangerous. His is a bomb and Light is keeping the bomb in bed with him. It could go off at any moment, get out, and then it's all ruined, everything good eaten away by necessary chaos.

The door is getting closer and then L's body falls, hitting the floor with an echoing thud. Light's mind registers it before his feet do and he practically trips over L when he reaches him. Rem is floating there, sticking out halfway through the wall, an empty needle in her great, ugly hand.

Light breathes out, straightens up.

Took her long enough.

"Good girl," he says without looking at her.

He reaches down to turn L's body onto its side, instead of face forward on the dirty ground. He really needs to see about getting this place cleaned out. He can't get a maid service, of course, on the chance that they'd find L chained up and call the police. Maybe he could write in the Death Note for a criminal to come to this building with a mop and bucket before their heart attack? Although, it would have to be someone who would realistically do such a thing, or else the instruction won't go through. Perhaps he could find an criminal janitor? There must be plenty of those.

Rem droops there, disapproving of him with her gaunt, skeletal face. "This is your worst plan yet."

Light almost laughs, overtaken by a manic sort of relief. L had gotten close, but he didn't succeed - couldn't possibly. It's terrifying and brilliant, a thrilling game that plays through Light's head. He sighs, leans back against the wall, and says, "Be polite or I won't allow Misa to come by and visit you."

"Maybe I'll kill you and go see her myself," Rem says. Light would assume that she's joking if she were Ryuk, but she's too sullen and humorless to even understand the concept of teasing.

"You wouldn't," he says, straightening up to stand over L. "My death would devastate her. It'd break her fragile little heart." He nods at L's crumpled body and Rem sighs, swooping down to pick him up and turning back towards the hall. Light will have to go get a sturdier chain before L wakes up. Also, get his clothes out of the wash.

Rem moves like the ghost of someone who was never alive, doesn't look at him when she says, "Misa Amane does not have a fragile heart."

* * *

Misa's room is clean for once. There are usually useless, pretty things scattered all over the place: bras and hairbrushes and magazines with her face winking, giddy and lovable, up at her from the cover. Everything is in neat boxes today. She and Light are moving in together. He's only doing it so that he can use the Death Note out from under his family's watch, of course, but still.

She and Light are moving in together.

She chews her pen, taps it on her lip. She feels prettier than she has in months. Confinement was okay, she supposes, but there'd been eyes on her all the time, watching and tracking and judging and she just hadn't been able to _breathe_. Now the only pair of eyes on her is wide and laughing and yellow, like the twin headlights of some killing machine.

Ryuk's alright company, but she misses Rem. She'd been quiet and heavy, felt more like a shield than an annoying pet. She'd had all the answers herself, had never asked stupid questions.

"He's keeping Ryuzaki around because they're _friends_, Ryuk," Misa repeats. She pries at the plastic of the pen with her teeth, knows she shouldn't - nervous habit, has to go, her agent had said so - but she does it anyway. Misa does all kinds of things that she knows she shouldn't.

"Really?" Ryuk asks from where he's floating upside-down, wide grin splitting his face. "So they're not doing sex, because Light says - "

"_Having_ sex, Ryuk," she corrects. "Humans _have_ sex."

Ryuk flips around, balancing his chin on a pointy hand. Still smiling. "Right, sorry. Japanese is hard."

Misa rolls her eyes, taps her pen again. It's gel, light blue, has sparkles in it. There are twenty-six names written on the page of the Death Note in front of her and she traces them with her eyes, the tips of her fingers. It's sort of fantastic, if she thinks about it - and she doesn't often think about it. People are dying. She is killing them with light blue gel ink.

"I'll buy you a grammar book, if you want," she says to Ryuk, not really paying attention anymore.

Distancing herself. Everything is easier if she distances herself from it. The dead bodies become statistics in the newspaper and Light's smile blots it all out, makes murder into shining, golden justice. Light's smile can do anything.

"Nah," Ryuk says, "buy apples if you're buying something. Anyway - "

"Yes," Misa almost snaps, then stops herself. Slow breaths, even breaths. Think of Light's smile, the ends of his hair touching his eyelashes; warm hands, smooth skin, hers in a way that he isn't anyone else's. She starts again. "Yes, they're having sex. So, what? What am I supposed to do about it?"

Ryuk shrugs his jagged shoulders, moving like a caustic puppet. "Don't know. You could kill L."

Misa's pen stops tapping.

"I couldn't," she says. "Light would be sad."

Light fucks L and doesn't fuck her, but what is that, really? Her eyes are something L doesn't and can't ever have. She sees death and knows death and Light _needs_ that, needs her. He doesn't need sex or friendship or L, not really. It's just something to occupy himself with. L is a toy, but Misa is a tool, and only one of those things is indispensable.

Ryuk shrugs again, gets packing tape stuck on his fingers and twirls off in a fit of otherworldly amusement, calling back as he goes, "I didn't know Light was happy."

Misa taps her pen.

* * *

There's a church down the road from Wammy's, old and unused. There's a church down the road from everything in England, it seems. L goes there when they're zipped up in stifling winter coats and sent out onto the grounds to do what is widely referred to as "play" by everyone at Wammy's who is over the age of ten. L doesn't play. L knows how to do everything, but he doesn't know how to do that.

B follows him. He follows him around corners and down the gravel path and through the cold sunlight that flickers between the dying limbs of ancient elm trees. B watches his hair toss in the light wind and traces the outline of his profile with the tips of his fingers. He wants to draw L's face on the back of his hand, wants to imprint it somewhere it can never change or grow or go away.

Run, run, run. L always runs when he notices B following him, skips over stones and stumbles heavily through the quiet fall morning, always straight to the church.

"What are you doing?" B will say.

"Go back inside," L will say, standing before the heavy stone doors.

"It's ugly," B will say, or something like it.

And it is. Dark, wet moss grows on the sides and there are bugs and mice and dead and dying things inside. The stained-glass windows have all been smashed or removed, carted off to street fairs and flea markets; a corner of the Virgin Mary's face sold for a few pounds. The church was built by humanity and it's been left to decay by humanity. God has nothing to do with it. It's ugly.

"I like it," L will say.

"I like you," B will say, or sometimes, "I love you," if he's feeling comical and brave and half out of himself.

The wind will whistle like a nasal ghost through the old stones of the building and something will flap its broken wing somewhere far off. B will hear it, or think that he can.

"Go back inside," L will say again.

B will never listen.

* * *

He wakes slowly, not shifting sharply from a dreamscape to stark reality, but blinking lazily as one fades into the other. His childhood becomes the present, his tiny unpracticed limbs elongate into those of a grown man, and the old church down the path from Wammy's, lined by towering elms and visceral tethers of nostalgia, becomes the basement level of an abandoned warehouse two miles outside of London.

B sits up, feels as if his organs have liquified - a metaphorical ebola, beautiful in its ecstatic nausea - and breathes in the sick scent of late morning garbage.

He's been here for only a day, had snuck onto an L.A. to London flight the night before, then stole a cab while the driver was having a smoke break. He'd driven it to the edge of town, found a rat-infested building vacant of squatters, and set himself up in it like a hotel room. People are - can be - lovely, with their bones and teeth and hollow laughter, but they crowd things, make it loud and hard to think straight, send his thoughts running in uneven jumps like a arrhythmia of the heart, instead of the flat, still line of death.

He stands with several quick cracks of his spine, pulling on his shirt and picking up of the jar he'd knocked over in his sleep. Laudanum, undiluted, cheap for the common man and free for B's clever fingers and fast feet. And one of the only things that will put him to sleep properly. It's not that his mind is filled with horrors to keep him awake at night or anything in that maudlin vein - he's actually rather fond of horrors, as it goes - it's just how his body works. He doesn't need sleep.

But he wants it. His head gets crowded and he needs things to go dark and dreamy, to corral his thoughts back into their proper order and make everything clean agin.

The dream about the church is familiar, comforting in its way, even though it hadn't ever truly happened like that in waking life. B would follow L, sure, but never fast enough, and most days the chapel doors would already be closed behind L, and he'd have to chase him inside, through the pews and behind the tabernacle, an improvised game of hide-and-seek played within the moth-eaten curtains surrounding the smashed-in windows.

He had once tackled L into one of the stone walls, cracking his head solidly against the stone. The blood had gotten all over B's hands, dark and thick and slightly terrifying - because the idea of Lawliet dying had been the relative equivalent of a nuclear warhead decimating the city of B's mind, cutting his existence into the jagged, finger-pricking pieces it had been in before they'd met. He'd panicked. He'd been 9 and L had been 11 and they were both already trained in the basics of first-aid, but B's hands had shaken and his feet had stomped and he hadn't - he couldn't -

L had spoken slowly, given directions in his quiet, uninterested voice on how to staunch the bleeding, how to keep him awake. Neither of them had even thought to go back Wammy's, hadn't been found until Roger, noting the disappearance, had sent a groundskeeper out after them.

B had never apologized. The injury had struck him as deserved. L had never asked him to.

He packs up his meager supplies and moves out into the street. He assumes his cab must have been re-stolen by this point, so doesn't even bother checking for it. He ought to steal a car that people won't constantly be flagging down, besides.

There's a woman is in a bra and skirt standing on the next corner, shirt thrown over one arm, high heels clutched in the hand that doesn't hold a cigarette up to her smudge-red lips. She's not very pretty, but appealing in an indulgent way. B would fuck her if he was someone who knew how to indulge.

"Looking for something, love?" she calls to him. Leeds accent, low and smoke-harsh.

B smiles wide and far from charming. "Why yes," he says, turning to face her fully. There's a momentary flash of unease in her eyes, but in her line of work, you'll never get any business if you turn away every man who makes you a bit uncomfortable.

Her blood doesn't splatter the alley walls quite as nicely as he'd imagined it would, but there's still a catharsis to it. She doesn't put up as much of a fight as she could, almost as if she's resigned to it, and her chest cavity is warm and slightly enigmatic. He feels like a poor man's Jack the Ripper, killing prostitutes in London. Maybe he could stick around, make a game of it, but there's no investigator here that's clever enough to play with him properly.

He can't stay, anyway. He needs to catch the next train to Winchester.

* * *

Light is on him when he wakes up, face pressed into the crook of L's neck, warm breath puffing against his skin. L tries to shift, feels his head reel and realizes that his movement is impeded by more than just the body resting on top of him. The metal clanks and he feels the cuffs cutting into both of his wrists, feels the bandage soft on one, and resigns himself to the fact that his most successful escape attempt was not particularly successful.

Still, progress is progress.

But Light is asleep, half on him and quiet in the windowless dark, and it's one of those surreal moments where everything feels too fake and ridiculous to really be real, but then he breathes in and out and time continues lagging on and it becomes inarguable that reality just has more of a sense of humor than it's typically given credit for.

So he lies there in bed with Light, which has lately become more habitual than is healthily navigable, trying to catalog his circumstances into something that can be measured and understood. The current state of affairs can, perhaps, be summed up by the following:

(1) Light is Kira. (2) Light has become rather fond of him. (3) Light has kidnapped him.

What this all ultimately leads to is the assurance that, when he gets out, he will have more than enough evidence necessary to prosecute Light - if not to a court of law, then to the taskforce, at the very least. So then the question becomes, does he want to? Light has laid all of it out on the board, shown his hand, made the game too easy. Though, there are loose ends - how did he get Raye Penber's name, how did he find Naomi Misora, what connection could he possibly have to B?

The last question strikes L dully, uncomfortably. He tries not to think of Beyond if he can help it, occupies himself with things far away from Wammy's and their tragic little world therein, and doesn't particularly like to consider anything to do with his childhood - apart from Watari, of course, but then he has an almost unconscious tendency to mentally distance Watari's current role in his life from the Quillish Wammy of his youth. There are cruel truths wrapped up with the thoughts of Quillish Wammy, just as their are with B, and Roger. Even in Mello and Near he can see an unflattering reflection of his own upbringing, the unfortunate realties that shape people like him, like Beyond Birthday.

And maybe one of the most appealing things about Light is that he is so separate from all of that. Reality means nothing in the world of Kira, where people die from pen ink and ugly gods float at your shoulder. Light's plane of existence is a fantasy-scape, a dream kingdom that he's trying to build for himself, and even though it will all ultimately come to nothing - the way every brilliant attempt at this sort of social and governmental upheaval has - it is still mesmerizing in its chaotic precision.

The basic problem with Kira is not that he is a murderer. L is a murderer, too, if not necessarily a direct one, as are plenty of the greatest men and women documented in the history books. Humanity is a species of murderers. The problem with Light isn't even his ideals. In theory, they're really quite nice, but most things are nicer in theory than they are in practice, and the innate goodness of man that Light seems determined to seek out and drag bodily to the foreground is one of them. Kira's plan is brilliant in its conception, the only true problem with it being that it will never, ever work.

Criminals are not born, they are created, and man's inhumanity to man is not something that can be wiped out with a notebook and a lot of free time. The Old Testament God couldn't even manage it with a flood.

Light is peaceful in sleep, the mask firmly on even now, and L wonders if he dreams in doubts, if any part of that pretty head is filled with uncertainty over his decisions. If he can see the ruination of his budding new empire that's so clear to L even in waking life.

Perhaps he dreams mundane things, extracts from the normal life he's denied himself. A house in the suburbs, a good job, a pretty wife who can throw dinner parties and smile wide. Maybe a child. Maybe two. All the things that people like L aren't and never were going to have, the things that people like Light are born right into. That's all gone now. He's sabotaged his comfort to make way for meaning, a quiet revolution in his childhood bedroom. He's changed the rules for himself.

L admires him as much as he envies him, and condescends to him even more still. Light doesn't yet understand the gravity of his sacrifice because he hasn't realized that he's given it all away for _nothing_. There is no kingdom for the righteous at the end of the road, not on earth, and not for people who do what Light's done. Not for people like L.

L can't tell the time from where he is, but it must be morning or close to it, because Light's internal clock is rigorous and he's shifting awake now. He rolls off of L slightly, then rolls back, touching hid bare arms, breathing into his neck, the warmth from his skin an apparent draw in Light's barely conscious state. It's only then that L fully registers that he's clothed again, back in his white shirt and jeans and - he reaches down to check - underwear, too. They smell like an unfamiliar fabric softener. The movement wakes Light a little further and he sits up, yawning. He's sleep-soft and tempting and L would rather like to fuck him and maybe would if this weren't a hostage situation and he wasn't miffed about that fact.

"Morning," Light tells him, soft smile altering the air in the room.

L doesn't hold back his eye-roll. He sits up, surprised when his arms move and keep moving, unimpeded in stretching to their full length. He looks down at the cuffs. They're different.

"This is my chain," he says dully, not looking back up at Light. There's a bit of plaster around his wrist, presumably cleaned and bandaged meticulously, because Light is like that.

He shifts lazily, reaching over to trace the metal with his fingers, sliding along the bones of L's hand. "It's just as much mine," he says, so casually that L feels half-transplanted by it, into a world where all they need to do is drink coffee and read the paper and exist near one another. "I must have earned partial ownership given the amount of time I spent voluntarily imprisoned by it."

Light's smile is a transforming thing. L blinks at it, feels uneasy, like he should be running and hiding and fighting. He's tired, though, and doesn't remember the last time he ate.

"You went back to headquarters," he says.

"Obviously," Light returns, standing from the bed and picking up his watch from the side-table. "It'd be slightly suspicious if I disappeared at the same time that you did, wouldn't it?" There's a niftily little spark in his eyes that L doesn't like, reeking of ardent superiority. "The Kira investigation has been a bit on hold in order to make time for the search for you, or your body." He looks in the mirror, a recent addition the the otherwise bare walls, and begins sorting out his hair. "Given that the only people who know what you look like are on the investigation team and that Watari has forbidden us from describing your appearance, it's not going particularly well."

"Watari's alive?" L asks. He hadn't liked to think about it, but Kira's track record had suggested that he wouldn't be.

"Everyone's alive," Light says.

L assumes that he's referring to the investigation team and not, say, everyone on the entire planet. He knows this not just from basic logical reasoning but because Light has brought in the paper the last few times he's been to visit - hasn't seemed to have any qualms with letting L know the date or time; three days since his imprisonment, last L had checked, probably four now. Kira's back and more committed to the cause than ever, is seems. Light has to have Misa doing at least half, if not most, of the judgements, given the amount of time he's been with L over the past few days. Close and crowding, on him and touching him, unceasingly - not even particularly sexually, just _touching_. Skin contact. He's even tried to hold his hand a few times, although L had promptly shaken him off in turn.

It should be hard for L to rationalize the darling lover boy in here with the exacting killer making the headlines out there, but it's not. Not really. L has had months to get used to the unsettling disconnect between Light's various masks.

He's playing a part now as he gets dressed, acting as if this situation is the pinnacle of normalcy, using his school-boy tenor instead of his true voice. "If someone isn't a criminal and doesn't pose a clear and present danger to Kira's reign," he says, straightening his collar, "then it wouldn't be right for me to kill them."

L snorts, watches the shifting lines of Light's body.

"I posed a danger," he says. It's an opposite situation, but a relevant one nonetheless. "I still do."

Light looks over his shoulder at him. "That's cute that you think so."

L stands so quickly that the chain makes a clanging, cacophonous noise. He feels an expression trying to twist its way onto his face - nostrils flaring, teeth gritting - and shoves it down.

"Oh, am I cute?" he says, voice a thin ring of disdain. "Am I your pet detective now? Feed me cake and pat my head when I'm good, asphyxiate me when I'm bad." He shakes his arm, causing another orchestra of clinking noise. "Are we going to live happily ever after like this?"

Light watches him with wide, almost shocked eyes, as if an outburst of disapproval from his captive is something he had never in a million years foreseen. He almost seems to be under the impression that L will just go along with this, will just fade into him, overtaken by love or something ridiculous in that vein.

He opens his mouth, but doesn't speak. The grey of the lowlight in the room paints him in long shadows, making him seem tall and grim and fantastical. He's still such a beautiful thing.

L shakes his head. "You're so deluded," he says. "It's actually kind of striking. If I were a starving artist I'd probably make you my muse." He lifts a hand, using his expanded freedom of movement to scratch at his head. He doesn't know what to do, to say. The game has gone to a standstill and he doesn't know what pieces to play now that the board is gone. He gets quieter, more sober; looks down at his hands, then back up. "You're going to lose, Light. You're going to lose and it's because of this. Me."

Light still doesn't speak and L is starting to realize that it's on purpose, that he's leaving L alone to flounder with his own words, to try to make sense of his own convictions. L breathes the other things he wants to say out in a heavy breath, expelling the sentiments without giving them voice. He's so tired.

Light steps forward. His shirt is wrinkled and he has bed-head and sleepy, adoring eyes, and when he cups L's jaw it feels like what Adam touching God must have felt like, except much dirtier.

"If you were really so clever, you would have killed me," L breathes against Light's skin when he's pulled close, letting himself fade into the warmth. He's tired. All he does is sleep now, but he's still so tired.

"Clever isn't everything," Light says into his hair.

"Oh, isn't it?"

Light skates his hands down L's back, sort of clutching him, and it's slightly shameful how enjoyable it is. Light has become a comforting thing to him and, at some point, L has become a thing in need of comfort. It ignites in his mind and, quite suddenly, everything becomes a panic and he's twisting out of Light's reach. The chain jangles from where it's hooked onto the best post, and if Light wanted, he could chase L, corner him against the bed and do that whole violent, overbearing sex thing that he's so fond of.

He doesn't, just stands there, hands at his sides, looking at L. There's a curious import to Light's eyes now that Kira's at the helm, a strange sense of appraisal in his every glance. Justice is meant to be blind, but half of Kira's power lies in faces. A person without eyesight surely couldn't do any damage with the Death Note, even if the rules were in brail.

"There's more to it," Light says. He's not following a proper line of conversation as such, but L still knows what he means.

L looks at him steadily, resolves not to argue this because it's circular and always will be, and any agreements that they can come up with will be tentative at best, fading into nothing as soon as L escapes and the game is back on. This is war and Light is insisting on a recess and L is mixing his metaphors and, really, there are no good choices to be made here and he can't, he can't -

"Tell me there's not," Light says, stepping forward, voice even. "Go ahead, perform. That's what you do, isn't it?" He looks at L expectantly. "Make a moving speech about justice, lay out all of your ugly parts. I'm waiting." He rounds on L without really moving, presence fanning out and taking up too much space. "Tell me all the ways in which it's very simple, how much you're _not_ in love with me."

He lays it out almost like a business proposal, an offer on the table. Like L's answer even matters. The curious thing about Light is that he sounds very sane sometimes, even when the substance of what he's communicating is anything but. There's a sobering, trustworthy card he likes to play and he's laying it down hard now.

L looks away. "I'm hungry," he says, watching the cuffs slide around his wrists.

Light stops, looks as if he's going to say something weighty and imploring, but changes tactics at the last second, shaking his head. "I can't stand you, you know," he says, leaning forward to plant a kiss on L's temple. It's chaste and quick and shiver-warm.

"I thought you loved me," L says dully, leaning back onto the bed.

Light follows him, pressing close, overtaking. L's senses thrill with the feel of lithe teenage boy and his insides twist tighter. He's getting hard, and from the twitch of Light's lips against his neck, he's realized.

"It's interesting, isn't it? How that works," he says, pressing his lips to L's chin, his jaw. His hands slide along his hips, tickle his rib cage and sides. "I feel things for you that cannot possibly exist," Light murmurs, rocking his hips softly against L's. "Human behavior makes so much more sense now."

L almost laughs at that, hair tickling his ears. Light feels unbearably _nice_ against him. "And yet how to navigate it is still a mystery to you."

"Not one that I need to solve," Light says. "I don't need to be a person."

L rolls his eyes, slipping his foot up the back of one of Light's calves. "Ah, yes, I forgot. You're God."

"I am justice," Light tells him, head buried against L's neck, "I am salvation." He's predictably very turned on by this and the rate of his thrusts speeds up, pressed tight against the crook of L's hip. "I am truth and - "

"What is this, one of those door-to-door church spiels?" L says, hand running down Light's back. It feels excellent, of course, but that doesn't obscure the fact that this is all more than a little ridiculous. "Are you going to give me a pamphlet, too?"

Light grunts, glaring up at him. The hint of hormonal embarrassment in his face, which he quickly quashes and replaces with vague distain, almost makes this whole kidnapping thing worth it. L sits up, shifting Light, who by now is more or less in his lap.

"If you let me have a shower," he says almost lazily, feeling a hint of power returning, "I'll jerk you off." He keeps his voice low, tempting, cheek pressed to the side of Light's jaw, breath whispering across his ear. Light shivers, makes a noise that sounds suspiciously desperate and, apparently realizing this, stands abruptly and roughly unlocks L from the bedpost, wrapping the other end of the chain around his hand and leading L off to the bathroom the way one would lead a pet.

The shower is nowhere as nice as it had been at the investigation headquarters and the both of them barely fit, skin pressed to wet skin, but it prompts something like a return to the strange normalcy that they'd existed in for the last few months, a war ruled more by domestic grievances than murderous ones. If L were a good prisoner, he's sure he'd fight Light, wouldn't want to touch him or kiss him or fuck him, but part of L - beyond the intellect, the measured cruelty - is this lank, pale body and it _wants_, demands things from everyone who gets close enough.

His hands snake around Light's cock, teasing him, making his gasp and shove and mutter death threats under his labored breath. It's a heady, powerful feeling and he milks it for all it's worth, turning Light into a soft, golden puddle, making him writhe his hips prettily.

He breathes warms spots on Light's neck, holds him up when he comes, legs going weak and shaky; still a helpless little boy, even now.

"L," Light sighs, head falling back onto the cool tile.

He's late for work.

* * *

The honeymoon period comes to a sudden end.

Light is taking the train back from headquarters to his and Misa's new apartment - partly to appease her, mostly just to pick up some clothes to take back to L's - after a determined but fruitless day of searching for their lost leader. He'd done a fair bit of staring off into the distance, apparently wallowing in the agony of a lost friend, while in actuality mostly just thinking about the lean curves of L's thighs, the lines of his back. Fucking him on and against various household objects.

If it were anyone else, it'd be slightly pathetic. As it is, it's just glorious, a torrent made out of beautiful things.

A man has thrown himself in front of one of the trains - not an unheard of occurrence in Tokyo - and although no one else was hurt, it causes quite a hold up at the station. Light thinks about walking the rest of the way, but he stops when he sees the screen, news headline flashing across in vibrant type: _12-year old boy found murdered, raped in Shibuya. Suspect in custody_.

A photo of a balding, waxy man with an uneven beard and little round eyes appears on the screen, name written boldly below. _Kaito Hidaka_,_ age 44_. _Elementary school tutor._ His identity is so blatant, so direct, it feels as if the media is purposefully giving it to Kira, saying, _"Here, you can have the son of a bitch."_ They show the murdered boy's class photo. He's small for his age, like a frightened rabbit, wide black eyes staring up into the camera.

Light feels sick. His fingers twitch.

Before he can think about, he's ducking into the subway bathroom, pulling the pieces of the notebook out of his wallet that he's kept for safe keeping and scribbling _Kaito Hidaka_ across one in thin, looping Kanji. The rage pours out of him, quick as it had blossomed, and then he just feels the thick ooze of power, a heady, cloying sensation. It's what justice tastes like, he knows. A little bit of the rot has been washed away and a glorious cleanliness seeps into him then.

He leans against the bathroom wall, smiling to himself. He gets a few odd looks, but nothing more, and when he comes out, he's coiffed and perfect again. He changes his course, doesn't bother with his own apartment but goes straight to L, picking up an evening newspaper along the way.

The first thing he does when he walks in the door, not even acknowledging Rem's presence, is toss the paper into L's lap. It smacks him in the chest and falls to his lap, unrolling to reveal the top story.

"12-year-old boy," Light says, going straight for the small hotplate he'd brought in the other day and heating up some water for his tea. "Raped and murdered. Corpse mutilated. Liver cut out." He cuts a sharp look at L over his shoulder. " I suppose you think that the man who did this should be allowed to go free?"

L looks down at the paper, then back at Light, very slowly. "On the contrary, I think he should pay for his crimes. Although, you can't be completely sure that the murderer is a man, but - "

"I can," Light says. "They caught him. I killed him."

"Ah," L says, mind apparently locking onto Light's point. He sets the newspaper down, curling his legs up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. "It must have been awfully fast, for them to have a court case this soon."

Light rolls his eyes. He doesn't have time for this. "There was no case. It just happened yesterday."

"Then how can you be sure that he was guilty? Because it was on the news?" L scoffs. He falls back against the headboard. He's always falling back at things in a big huff and Light wishes he'd cut it the fuck out.

"It was open and shut. The man was his tutor, he was obviously - "

"But you don't know, do you?" L says, sitting up again. "You have no idea of what you're doing." He laughs and it's not a kind laugh. "Here I was thinking that Kira was a brilliant mastermind, only to find that you're just some boy who throws a tantrum and scribbles away in his diary every time he's confronted with something troubling in the world."

His loathing for L then is thick and flaring, rising up like a disease. He hates him more than he hates Kaito Hidaka.

"Something _troubling_? A child was raped and murdered, you despicable bastard," Light snaps, feeling his lip curl. L might as well be a child rapist and murderer.

"And what have you done?" he says. He could stand, anyone else would in his position, but he stays curled up on the bed. "How have you helped anything? You didn't solve the case, you didn't even try. Who knows if you got the right man, but who cares, right? As long as someone's heart stops then close enough, I suppose." He shakes his head, looks at Light with wide eyes and it's not just posturing, is it? L really thinks these things. "You're not justice and you're certainly not a god. You're a senseless, violent, unbearably human little mess of a thing, tearing down everything in your path because _you_ _can_."

What the fuck is wrong with L that he thinks these things?

"Oh, but you're a paragon of innocence and noble intentions, huh?" Light bites back, across the room and standing over L now. He's always standing over L these days. "At least I'm _trying_ to do good. You're just trying to amuse yourself, maybe get a good fuck or two in the bargain." He breathes the words onto L's face, watches them slip in around his eyes, between his lips and down his throat. "You're pathetic. Do you think I haven't realized? Do you think I don't see you for what you are?"

He doesn't notice when he puts his hand on L's chest but he does notice when it's shoved off. He moves it back, fingers grappling with the material of his shirt, pressing down hard. He can feel L's body heat against his palm, the steady twitch of his heartbeat. There is blood in him, pulsing under his skin. Light could open in the right vein and it would all just come pouring out, like a leak in a boat. He could drown him in it. He could drown them both.

L stops, tilts his head to the side. "If I fight, will you rape me?" he asks lowly. It sounds like nothing but distant curiosity.

Light pauses, imagines the scene playing out, imagines pinning L to the bed the way he so likes to pin L to beds. Imagines truly hurting him, making him bleed, killing him and mutilating the body. Removing his liver.

His had drops quickly away from L's chest.

"You'd like that, I suppose," he says, disgust apparent in his voice. "You can suffer and fight and play the martyr card, and still get what you want in the end. This is what you want, isn't it?" He leans in, close so L can feel him there and understand that he is something to be afraid of. "_Sometimes I want to pretend the only thing that's ever happened to me is you_," Light whispers, just cruelly enough to be a tease. "Do you want to know what I think?"

"Not really," L murmurs, voice unsteady, "no." His eyes are bulging wide, but he doesn't look afraid so much as he does curious, waiting with bated breath, as if Light is just a show being performed for nothing but his amusement.

It makes him angry, make his fingers twitch dully.

"I think you were telling the truth," he says. "When you said it to me, when you say it to anyone. You're so disgusted with yourself, with all the things you've done, all the people you've let inside, that you want to erase it all. With every case you try to become someone new. You shuck off your old skin, dirty and blemished and used, and play it like it's first love, the first touch." He twists the words up on his tongue, making them sharp enough to pierce skin. "You're reborn with every crime you stop, every suspect you pinpoint. You solve cases not to absolve your sins, but to try to hide from them."

This is the point at which, on any other day during any other fight, Light would simply pin him to the bed. He can't quite make himself do it. The face of the 12-year-old boy who's name he can't remember is staring back at him from behind his eyes and it aches in ways that he knows that L can't understand. L doesn't care about that boy. L doesn't care about anything.

"But the eye of justice cannot be blinded," Light says, staring stonily down at L. "I see you for what you are and I hold you in judgement."

He waits for a moment for L to say something, to apologize, to admit to Light's point, to tell him pretty, redeeming things about the places he's been and the people he's saved and the crimes he's solved. Good things, true things.

_"There are no true things about me, Light-kun."_

L doesn't speak and after a moment more, Light goes, door falling dully shut behind him.

* * *

London is a shithole, as it turns out.

Mello's boots are dirty and his hair hasn't been washed in four days and he smells like a pub toilet. Food is cheap and sold on every corner - from coffee shops and market stalls and fast-talking men with thick accents who call out orders - but one can only live off of curry and hot cocoa for so long, and room and board are harder to come by. It snows too often and everyone walks too fast and knocks his shoulders and he's very tired and he misses L.

He hasn't seen L in over two years and hadn't expected to see him anytime soon, but dead people are so much easier to miss and the sense of loss has more shape to it by this point than his ambition. If L is alive, then he has no idea how to find him, and if he's not -

Then Mello has no idea how to anything.

L isn't like a brother to him, or a father, or anything stupid and kitschy like that, but he is something, a nameless force that exists to be aspired to. A thin smile and unimpressed eyes and a voice that talks in words that Mello wants nothing more than to understand.

Almost cruel, in his way, but then you don't speak ill of the dead, and you don't speak ill of L anyway. He's L.

Mello spends all of his time with that in mind, which is probably why he keeps seeing a thin shadow with a mess of black hair skirting around at the edges of his vision, following him on soundless footsteps. The shadow smiles sometimes, even though it should be too dark to make out its teeth.

He coughs, pulls his coat tighter. London is a shithole.

* * *

**tbc.**

* * *

**end notes:** Christ, there were a lot of different POVs in this chapter, eh? People in reviews keep telling me Light is likable in this and I agree, but I don't know how it happened. Anyway, things to look forward to/fear in the next chapter: there is going to be Mikami. He's completely unnecessary to the plot at this point, I just… like him. I have a feeling I'm not doing author's notes right? This reads like free-form poetry more than anything else.

But still, thank you all so much. Your support means a whole lot.


	10. far

**warnings:** bad writing? probable factual inaccuracies and mangled attempts at British accents/slang.

**notes:** Sorry this chapter took a bit longer to get out than the usual. RL combined with scattered motivations/excessive writing angst. I didn't get much of a response to the last chapter (which honestly isn't a big deal - let's face it, I'd probably this writing this fucking thing even if I was the last person in the fandom) but I got kind of nervous, all - did I fuck up? is it terrible? I've no idea what I'm doing in the first place and would have no qualms about being told that I'm doing it wrong. con-crit is appreciated and encouraged. don't have something nice to say? say something anyway! I'd really appreciate any response, just so I can gage how I'm doing.

Okay, review-PSA over. You can also feel free to ignore all my notes, skim this mess for the porny bits and never say a word to me. No hard feelings.

* * *

**chapter ten - far.**

* * *

_"I wanted to hurt you_

_but the victory is that I could not stomach it."_

- Richard Siken, _Snow and Dirty Rain_

* * *

"I can't talk to you right now," is the first thing Light says that morning, dropping off a takeaway bag of mini-waffles and unhooking L's chain from the bedpost to let him have his toilet break.

"Are we in a fight?" L asks, finger to his lips. "Should I be passive aggressive at you?"

Light's sigh is familiar and long-suffering and, for a moment, L can almost pretend that they're back at the investigation headquarters and nobody has kidnapped anybody.

"I don't care what you do, honestly," he says, hooking the chain onto the towel rack and going to lean against the doorjamb. "The judgements have started again, I have a ton of work to do with the taskforce today, Misa's having some sort interior decorating related mental breakdown, I have university classes to make up, and, on top of that, I'm supposed to be having dinner with my family tonight. I really don't have to time to deal with you today."

L finishes quickly, washing his hands to an apparently unsatisfactory degree - from the scathing look Light gives them - and rattles his arm as a signal that he's done and would like to go out an eat his waffles now. It's only been a week and already they've stepped into a sort of pattern, made easier by the fact that it's more or less what they were doing before, only with their positions reversed.

L misses being the one with the key.

He's also misses the first few days of his imprisonment, before the bout of godly mania that had sent Light into a tailspin of holier-than-thou monologues about the nature of justice. Ever since Kaito Hidaka he's been completely insufferable, and very psychically distant, as if he's afraid that if he gets to close, L is going to fall onto his cock and insist upon the whole sex slave thing.

L has only fucked Kira once - still has the faded marks around his neck from the encounter - and it hadn't gone especially well for for him, so he's not looking for a repeat performance quite yet, no matter the edge it would likely give him. Light had been different, had been soft and needy and young, easily appeased with hands and lips and warm sighs. Light is gone, though, and the man here now is just someone who's gotten his signals crossed, who's thought up some pretty ideas and convinced himself that being in love with L would put a nice spin on this whole story.

"Why don't you kill me?" L asks, pulling out one of the waffles with the ends of two fingers. The syrup drips across his hand, slides down his wrist. He licks it and feels better, like he can think slightly straight. "Mmmh."

Light wrinkles his nose and tosses him a napkin. "That's disgusting. Use a fork." He ignores L's question.

"I mean it, Light," L says, not bothering to finish chewing. "We don't talk, we don't have sex. We don't even smack each other around anymore. I'm sure you could get my name fairly easily, and even if you couldn't, a high enough dose of that drug you so love to put me down with and I'd be gone. Out of your hair. What's the point of keeping me alive?" He sucks on one of his fingers. "You could just as easily get a plant. They're less maintenance and serve more or less the same function."

Light folds his hands in front of him, watching L eat with an expression of vague interest, but not responding to - or even seeming to hear - a single word that he says. He glances at his watch. "You need a shower. Finish that and I'll give you ten minutes in the bathroom before I go."

L watches him, considers hanging himself with the chain just for something do, then takes another bite of his waffle.

He showers quickly, methodically, and Light stands in the bathroom doorway and watches him. There's no particular lust in his eyes, looks as if he could be thinking over his lunch plans or what shirt he's going to wear tomorrow. When L's finished, he walks straight out of the shower, not bothering with a towel - he never does when left to his own devices, not since he's been old enough to bathe himself; Watari never complains about the excess water. Light has always been far less lenient, but instead of the towel to the face and the fond admonishment that L's used to, Light just sets one down on the bed next to him as he chains him back to the headboard.

L doesn't reach for it, lets his hair drip patterns on the bedsheets. The air in the room is stale and he nearly chokes on it when he speaks, hurriedly, all in a rush, because Light's hand is on the doorknob and L is quietly desperate for him to stay.

"Is it beautiful yet," he calls, "your brave new world?"

It could be a dig, but he doesn't say it like one, just asks a question.

For the first time all day, Light smiles at him, glance shooting over his shoulder. It makes him appealing in a way that L nearly always forgets when not directly presented with it. "All in good time," he says, and lets the door thud behind him on the way out.

* * *

Aiber's thrusts are long and slow and the kid underneath him looks uncomfortable, but he doesn't protest and Aiber wouldn't hear him, anyway. He's got black hair and wide eyes, is a little too Japanese for it to be exact, but Aiber's not even going to pretend to not be doing what he's doing. L is dead or some such, but the world goes on, and boys with pale skin and thin wrists aren't hard to find in Tokyo.

His phone rings and he lets it go to voicemail, because pumping his hips is more important at this point. The boy mewls, says something too fast and breathy for Aiber to understand or care to.

"Hush," he grits, stilling a moment later, a shudder running down his back.

The hotel room is dirty and too full of furniture, a startling contrast to being in L's building. The phone rings again and Aiber comes and shoves off of the boy a moment later, planting the cash in his shaking hands and grabbing his cell out of his discarded jacket pocket.

"What?" he asks, too tired for charm and too sure of who it is to feel a need to employ any. The only other person who uses this number is one that Aiber can't quiet get his hopes up enough to wish for.

"Say _'thank you,'_" Wedy smarms. He can imagine her quirked lips, red and obnoxiously clever, shaping the words around a smirk and white, white teeth. He hates her with whatever's left over from his loathing of Light Yagami and his shiny hair and starched shirts and darling smiles.

The boy is putting his clothes on, bending over to pick them up, shameless and quiet. Aiber watches the arch of his back, decides it's not unhealthily gaunt enough. A thick disgust settles in stomach at having gotten off to such a pathetic copy and he doesn't bother to mask the look on his face when the boy nods at him. He's got smudged mascara and exhaustion on his face, can't be more than 20, is probably doing this just to be able to eat, and Aiber should be kind to him. He isn't.

"What for, pretty lady?" he asks Wedy, holding open the door for his guest with a flourish that prickles with mockery.

"Just say it," Wedy tells him. She's not smoking, he can tell. He imagines it's warm where she is. Wedy hates to smoke in hot weather, says in makes her feel like a sauna. She says a lot of things.

The boy finishes dressing and goes, watching him down the hall. "I really don't like you right now, Wedy," he says.

Even though she probably did the smart thing, the only reasonable thing to be done at this point. She left and Aiber stayed and that should somehow make him nobel and good, but it hasn't led to anything but early morning fucks and a pit that likes to gnaw rabid at the back of his throat. L is gone and a prostitute is leaving Aiber's hotel room, passing someone in the hall who, for a moment, looks suspiciously familiar.

"You'll like me more when you don't die from a heart attack," Wedy says, patient annoyance in her voice.

A moment later and that someone looks even more familiar, stopping in front of Aiber's open doorway and bowing slightly. The coat has been dry-cleaned, all the folds ironed straight and stiff, and for a second or two, the general atmosphere becomes that of a hardboiled detective novel.

"Thank you," Aiber says hurriedly, and snaps the phone shut, stands up a little straighter and covertly checks his bathrobe for stains, bowing back. He should be in a suit, he should be in a suit with a drink in his hand and a smirk on his face and not fucking every odd person who looks slightly like L.

Watari takes off his hat off. "You said you wanted to help?" he asks, voice a stern bend of something low and familiar.

Aiber swallows and nods him inside.

* * *

Sayu eats too fast. Sayu does everything too fast, including talk, and the combination of that with tonight's dinner makes most of her input into the conversation barely intelligible. Their mother has to remind her to chew her food for the third time before her next sentence is fully comprehensible.

"I don't understand why Light's allowed to move out but I'm not," she says, tapping her chopsticks excitedly against the edge of her plate.

"Because," Light says, rolling his eyes good-naturedly, "you're 15."

"So?" she asks, taking another bite and mumbling around it, "I'm very mature for my age."

That makes their mother laugh because habits that make everyone else embarrassed by association are always endearing when the person whom they belong is your darling baby girl. "Chew, Sayu," she corrects agin. Never in Light's entire life has his mother corrected him for anything and it might be a point of pride if it weren't an absolute given. He can't imagine what it might be like to be a person in need of correction.

Sayu, on the other hand, is never without some fault or another. She is young and pretty and charming and so everyone brushes them off, but one day she will grow up and most likely find herself incapable of meeting anyone's expectations. As it is now, no one has any expectations for Sayu; Light has used them all up. He'd feel bad about it if excessive proficiency wasn't something that came as natural as breathing or faking his smiles, but it does, and she gets on well enough besides.

"I was more mature than you are now at 8," he tells her, after fully chewing and swallowing and wiping his mouth lightly with a napkin. His tone is teasing and perfectly inoffensive and she just meets his smile with one of her own.

"You were more mature than Grandpa at 8," she tells him.

"Don't poke fun at your brother, Sayu," their mother says, offering Light more food, which he declines politely.

It's not that this is uncomfortable in and of itself - the situation actually instills him with a calming sense of normalcy - it's just that he doesn't have time for it. There are serial bombings going on in Norway and a sex trafficking scandal in Taiwan and a succession of brutal murders coloring the English countryside that are eerily reminiscent of Jack the Ripper and have the press all in a buzz. Family dinners ought to wait until all the dirt has been cleared away, until the world is shining and new and doesn't corrode more fully with every passing second. Family dinners are for unremarkable people with nothing better to do.

God doesn't need a family to have dinners with.

Though God shouldn't need a girlfriend either, and his phone still buzzes with the fifth call from Misa that day. He presses _ignore_ without a second thought and turns back to his sister.

"I'm just kidding, jeez," she says, swallowing down her rice. "Light knows he's perfect. Anyway, isn't Dad going to come home soon? I know Kira's started up again and everything, but there are more important things, aren't there?"

She says it so offhandedly and Light stills in his seat. He can feel the world decaying around him.

"More important than justice?" he asks slowly, looking at his plate.

"Yeah," Sayu says, swallowing quickly and smiling brightly and being a thousand things that are all acceptable but in no way enviable, "like family." She sets down her glass and glances at her mother. "And love." She drags the word out, turning it into a joke, a pretty fantasy, stripping it of any meaningful substance.

"Nothing's more important than justice, Sayu," Light tells her. His tone sounds even to his ears and it strikes him as a perfectly natural thing to say, but her eyebrows go up.

"Oookay," Sayu says, lips quirking. "I know _somebody_ who's gonna ace all of his NPA exams and fail all of his relationships."

Light thinks of L and then tries not to, because there's nothing particular about him to be thought of. He talks too much lately and doesn't listen enough, asks unreasonable questions and pokes and prods at Light with his crooked fingers, looking for weak parts. Light is annoyed by his existence and would fantasize graphically about killing - for real this time - if doing so didn't make him feel like his chest had been hollowed out and filled with many-legged insects that crawl around and lay eggs and breed and -

Light remembers not to think of it. He puts it away, shoots a teasing look at Sayu.

"Hmm, that's funny," he says, "because I know someone who's going to fail all of her math exams if her brother stops helping her."

"No way," she more or less squeals. "I'm really good now. Honestly. Mom, tell him!

Their mother smiles placatingly, puts a hand to her daughter's shoulder. She's got tired eyes and Light knows that she wants her husband home. "You're fine, Sayu."

Sayu cocks her head at him. "See, I'm fine."

Light nods, thinks he must be smiling. "I know you are."

People like Sayu will never be anything more than _fine_. And that's fine. But Light is more than that, so much more, and it's his responsibility to take to reins, to fight for justice, to do the things that no one else can. Maybe L could, if he'd try, but L doesn't care. L doesn't care about 12-year-old boys with missing livers and he doesn't care about justice.

L doesn't care about anything.

* * *

L is doing tai chi when the door opens.

Watari had special ordered a martial arts instructor straight out of a rural Chinese prison for him a when he'd been 13. It had been a birthday present. L had become proficient in most of the common forms in under a year. He possesses no particular physical talent beyond the ability to memorize and replicate muscle movement, which is only different from absorbing and retaining any sort information as far its application it concerned, and L has a long and storied history of getting his body to do what he wants it to.

His back is to Light and he slowly moves his arms, shifting his stance, body arching in a way that he's sure must but reasonably appealing. It's a bit difficult to manage with one arm chained to the bed frame, but there's enough give for him to move comfortably, even if his bones crack and his muscles ache with every movement from being in relatively the same position for the last week or so. One hand stretches out, the other following it, and then he hears an unsettlingly high-pitched giggle and freezes.

"Wow, Ryuzaki. You're actually pretty tall."

Misa's hair isn't in pig-tails and L thinks it's maybe the first time he's seen her without them, photographs aside. She's got what is probably meant to be an inconspicuous hat on and is slipping a pair of comically large sunglasses off of her face, looking for all the world how one does when trying to be discreet and not having any guidance beyond what they've seen in movies. She's holding a department store bag in one hand and grinning at him like they're old school friends or something.

"Misa-san," L says, lowering his arms and immediately resuming his slump. He feels strangely caught off guard by the remark, as if the revelation of his true height is the equivalent of being seen naked. Which in truth, would probably have bothered him less.

"I brought you some clothes," Misa says. "And cake." Light isn't with her and if there's an explanation for that, she doesn't offer it. "You really haven't done much with the place, have you?"

The room contains a bed, a small, rickety desk, and one discolored chair. It's cheap furniture, but still too much for Light's lack of income, so L assumes that Misa's paying for his accommodations from her wages as a model. L has had as much to do with the acquisition and decoration of the place as a beetle has to do with the purchase of the boot that stomps on it, and it's not as if Light is in the habit of bringing him _Martha Stewart Living_ in with the morning paper. Unless she expects him to have fashioned curtains out of the clothes off his back, he's not sure what sort of home improvement Misa imagines he could have done.

He doesn't bother pointing any of this out, though, just holds up his arm and says, "Light chained me up."

"You chained him up first," she counters, tossing one of the bags at him.

He doesn't catch it, just watches as it collides rather comically with his abdomen and then drops to the floor. A pair of jeans spills halfway out, along with a few shirts. Did she buy him underwear? Is she the sort of person to buy underwear for her boyfriend's… captive? Is there any sort of person like that in existence?

"Yes," he says, awkwardly. He's not the infamous murderer in the room, but he feels strangely guilty, like he should apologize to her for something. This isn't a new situation for him, not as if none of his suspects have ever had significant others - Aiber is technically married, after all - his work is just too important for him to be kept up at night by something so trivial as infidelity. Maybe it's that he knows Misa, has spent a certain amount of time around her.

Maybe it's just because he can sympathize with her position - so to speak.

"Do you have plates here or - " she sets down the other, smaller bag, looking around the room, eyes stopping on him only briefly before quickly flicking away. "I - you should change. You kind of smell." It would be an insult if she didn't sound so distant, far away from the scene, like she's reading off well-practiced lines.

L looks at her, looks at the bag on the floor, then reaches down and picks it up. He does smell.

Misa coughs quietly. "Are those Light's clothes?" she says without looking at him. They are - Light had said that getting L's own clothes from headquarters would be too risky, had given him some sweatpants and a few t-shirts to borrow. They hang unsettlingly on L, are cut for a different sort of man, one who plays volleyball on beaches in magazine ads. He supposes it must be obvious to Misa how unused to them he is.

"Yeah, he lets me wear his t-shirts sometimes, too," she says, smiling a small, forced smile, full or something that lacks the energy to be loathing, but comes close enough. "I definitely look better in them, but it's okay." She moves closer, almost examining him. "You're alright, I guess. But, I mean, nobody would put you on the cover of a magazine, would they?"

There's a quivering, suppressed sort of agony in her voice and it makes L feel how a person must feel when they feel guilty.

"No," he agrees, "they wouldn't."

She cocks her head, _hmms_, and then straightens up, pasting her Stepford wife smile back on. "I'll go find plates." She opens the bedroom door and L's half-sure she's going to leave him to sort out getting changed with one of his wrists cuffed, before she calls out down the long hall, "Rem, will you come unchain Ryuzaki and make sure he doesn't run away?"

"I don't think the Shinigami - " L says, given that every time he's tried to get her attention, he's been promptly ignored.

"She'll come," Misa says.

And she does. Which is curious, as is the almost gentle way that she accepts the handcuff key from Misa - who keeps it in her pocket, L notes, storing that away in the place where he keeps all of the information that could possibly help him escape. Misa goes and the Shinigami undoes the lock, wrapping one sludge-like hand around his forearm as a warning, then floats there, blank eyes set on him. He has no space and no privacy but he's had plenty of time to get used to such a situation in the last few months, and changes quickly and fastidiously. He doesn't bother trying to make a run for it, knows he won't get far and rather wants cake besides. He hasn't eaten since yesterday morning and would claim mistreatment if he thought Misa would care all that much.

He can hear her knocking things around and cursing through the thin walls, breathy, overexcited squeals filling the quiet apartment. It must be a full apartment, if Misa's gone to look for plates. L hasn't been out of this room and the hall and had known better than to ask Light.

If he's honest, he almost resigned to his situation - if only for the moment. Being held hostage is not ideal, of course, but there's a dusty, disused, truthful corner of his mind that admits that he's almost _grateful_ that his autonomy has been temporality taken away, because the paralyzing monstrosity of the things left behind, the things he has to deal with, are no longer bearing down on him. He is free from the necessity of apprehending Kira, free from the law's petty demands and the public's scrutinous eye.

Light, of course, still brings him the newspaper. He even circles articles that criticize L's investigation for easy reading.

"Shinigami Rem," L says, after he finishes dressing - blue jeans, grey shirt; the closest thing to white that he'd found in the bag - "would you be opposed to answering some questions I have about the Death Note?"

Rem slumps aggressively at him. "He won't like that," she says.

L is a genius but extreme intelligence is unnecessary to understand who _he_ is.

"No," L says, giving her a quiet smile, "I don't imagine he will."

She looks at him for a long time, as if he's a television program and there is no expectation for her to respond to his words. Before she gives any indication of her answer, whether negative or positive, Misa's back, with napkins instead of plates, because apparently Light hasn't been expecting any dinner parties. Misa mumbles something quietly to Rem, standing uncomfortably close, and L wonders whether Shinigami possess enough emotion to be able to care for humans. The look on Rem's face before she nods softly and floats out through the wall says _yes_.

The cake is good, though not excellent, and Misa pulls the invalid of a chair up to L's bed, resting her high-heeled boots across the sheets, like a child who cares very little either way about impropriety. Misa has some cake, too, and L doesn't remark at the change, just listens to her rattle off several disconnected, uninteresting facts about her day and where she bought his clothes and how he looks way better in jeans that fit, but still not very good, and does he like it here and have he and Light been getting along and, oh, have they been having a lot of sex?

"Misa-san," L says, not a protest or a defense, but a warning. He really isn't interested in performing a soap-opera scene with her over Light, especially since, as far as he's concerned, she is welcome to him at this point.

Her smile is jagged and bubblegum bright and there's a smart determination in her eyes. "What, I'm just asking," she says. "A girl wonders, you know?"

L sets his fork down and sits up straighter, shrugging off the role with just a shift in stance. "What are you hoping to gain through this exactly?" he asks. "If you're unsatisfied by your relationship with Light, you ought to bring it up with him. If you're simply looking to feed some masochistic urge through extensive consideration of your boyfriend's infidelity, perhaps you - "

"I'm not masochistic," Misa snaps, standing quickly and turning away. She crosses her arms and moves as if she wants to pace, but the room is too small for her to really have anywhere to go.

"Oh, yes," L almost snorts, "neither am I. And Light Yagami is an innocent. And Kira is justice." He shovels in a bit more cake, imagines he can feel the glucose molecules igniting something neglected in his mind. "I can see your common interest, at least. You both live on lies."

"And you don't?"

Her frankness is overshadowed by the breathy indignation she adds to the words, squealing them out like a piece of performance art. She is a performer in all things.

"Of course I do," L says, not looking at her in order to make her look at him. "I'm just the same as him." The startling reality is that it's not true - they are different in more ways than they are similar - but it is a formidable lie and one that all parties involved have signed on to believe, and so he treats it as fact, the same way you would in a game or play.

Misa seems to believe it. She crosses her arms again. Behind her, L can see the Shinigami's head poking partway through the wall, a grisly sight, only made less so by the somewhat uninterested look on the thing's face. It must have heard them. Maybe it has super-hearing. Maybe they're just being loud.

"Maybe," L says, mostly because he wants to test the reactions, "you should fall wretchedly in love with me, in that case."

Misa barely reacts, like there are some things that her mind filters as jokes by definition. "Ew," she says, but it's halfhearted and far away, and the bulk of her attention seems to be fixed on the bathroom counter, visible from certain angles, where a bottle of aftershave sits. Even if Misa doesn't recognize it, It doesn't require particularly advanced deduction to come to the conclusion that it doesn't belong to L.

"You know, I could kill you anytime I wanted," she says, after a moment.

L blinks. The Shinigami has slunk back out of the room, leaving the wall blank and dull and white.

"I figured as much," he says. She is the Second Kira and the Second Kira can get your name just by looking at your face, and here she is and here's his face. The moment she'd walked in the door, he'd resigned himself to it. His current circumstances are of the sort that necessitate a certain degree of resignation. Fear gone, all that's left is simple curiosity. "How do you learn it?" he asks. "Do you see it, or does it just come to you?"

"I see it," she says, standing beside her chair like she can't decide whether she wants to sit back down or not. "Floating there. _L Lawliet_." She lifts up a hand, and doesn't quite point and doesn't quite touch, but gives the impression that she might be liable to do either at any moment.

She drops her hand, but the threat is there.

"I'm not going to, though," she says after a moment. "I could, but I'm not going to. I'm not stupid." She says it with such quiet force, like she's making a point, though not one intended specifically for L. "I understand more than he thinks I understand. I understand what I am."

She looks down at her hands and, though faded and hard to see at first glance, L can now tell that her fingers are covered in ink splotches.

He nods, isn't sure what he's nodding to. After a time, Misa sits down and picks at her cake some more.

* * *

Light goes to a guest lecture. He doesn't have the time, doesn't have any particular interest in the subject being discussed, but it's expected of him, so he goes. Light is the sort of person who goes to guest lectures, and other people go to guest lectures to impress people like him. That's just how the world, and academia - a fairly accurate microcosm of the full scope of modern society - works. His seat is uncomfortable and the people behind him won't stop whispering and the lecture hall smells like undried paint and he's, in general, looking forward to a very dull hour - and then the lecturer walks in and everything suddenly gets terribly interesting.

He looks like L, is Light's first thought, because Light has become a horrible shell of a person who typically only has two basic subjects of constant consideration, and one of them is L. The other is the nature of justice in a world riddled with seething, overhanging rot and the death of common morality. But mostly L.

Lately Light has spent more and more time preoccupied by the many and various ways in which he is patently pathetic and ethically abhorrent, and how there is nothing attractive about him at all, even when he's tied to a bed. In fact, it seems obvious that the entirety of Light's fascination with him had undoubtably sprung from a desire to conquer him, and now that L has been defeated and stripped of all agency, there is nothing at all appealing about his body, or his mind, or the way his fingers tap slow, thick rhythms in the heavy dark or -

There is nothing worth anything in L, no currency and no greatness that is more than greatness. He exists to be great, but in such an ugly way that it almost cancels itself out. Nothing great is great without being beautiful. Light is beautiful and L is ugly and these are where the lines fall. Light is only keeping him around out of some mix of charity and necessity. The necessary things are all ugly, never great.

But the man at the front of the hall is very good-looking. He's tall, he's got creases in his suit. Light likes him on sight. Light sees him and it's like how L would be if L were better, more worthy of Light.

The man clears his throat and speaks with tremulous conviction about law. His hair falls in his eyes, he wears glasses, looks like L in glasses and a suit which makes Light imagine L in glasses and a suit which is, altogether, a very different picture. Slumped and susceptible and uncaring and chained to things, always chained to things. Even in a suit L would be ugly, because L's existence is one that is dependent on both a stillness and a penchant for destruction.

The man in the suit who looks like L but not really like L could not destroy anything. He is not great, Light thinks. He is good.

Teru Mikami speaks and Light watches with a curious, loathsome wonder.

* * *

He skulks Borough Market in the mornings. Skulks because everyone looks at him like he's skulking and he sort of settles into it through lack of any other recourse. Afternoons he runs errands. There's a private investigator downtown - an overlarge, smushed woman with a hairlip who calls him _love_ and pats his ass sometimes - who can't be bothered to hire an assistant for proper pay, so she sends out anyone in need of a little extra cash on freelance jobs sometimes. Mello's in need of a lot of cash, but he needs a roof over his head and food to eat first and foremost, and working for Missy takes care of that.

It's on his fourth job for her that he gets caught. Business relations, Missy had called it, which - from the ridiculous clothes and heavy voices - Mello assumes means _gang stuff_.

He thinks he can do it, even though she tells him it's dangerous. He's still convinced he can do it, even when he's backed into a wall with a gun to his head. They tell him to beg for his life, but he doesn't. He begs for a job instead.

The meeting place the one man gives him - not the one with the gun, the other one, the one that smiles too much even though he has chipped teeth and picks at the undersides of his fingernails - is a fairly deserted street at a fairly deserted time of day, and then into the back room of coffee shop for a little bit of extra desertion. There are two men there, one of them from before - the smiling man - and another that Mello doesn't recognize who speaks with a thick northern accent.

He's sitting in a chair, legs sprawled aggressively apart. Mello hates the look on his face.

"No way," he says, shaking his head at Mello and spitting slightly when he speaks. He's chewing something that could be tobacco and could be bubblegum. "He's barely out of his nappies. We're not having a 12-year-old running for us."

"I'm 15," Mello says stoically, standing up straighter and trying to resist the urge to stomp his feet and _demand_ that they give him what he wants. He needs the money. He _needs_ it.

"Pipe down," the smiling man says, though not cruelly, and turns to his compatriot. "He's 15, see? And a pretty thing. Looks like a rich kid, or would without all that dirt on his face. No one would suspect. No one would think he could do the job."

The other man snorts. "That's cause he can't."

Mello thinks he probably shouldn't interrupt, but then he rarely should in any situation, and hardly ever listens to his better instincts. "I can," he insists, choking back his frustration. "I'll prove it. I'll do anything."

"Will you suck my cock?" the man in the chair asks, leering face split with a grin much crueler than the other man's quiet smile.

"No," Mello practically spits, unable to cover up his instinctive revulsion, even though it's weakness, weakness, _weakness_. Matt would probably laugh at him. Not for being weak, but for caring that he is, and for being in this situation in the first place. Matt would never be in this situation; Mat doesn't care about anything.

"Well then, he's not very committed to the job, is he?" the man says, grin splitting wider. The other one doesn't return his smile and doesn't particularly seem to like this whole business that sounds suspiciously like prostitution. Mello will do a lot, but he won't - he won't - he probably won't.

But desperate times.

"What has your cock got to do with the job, exactly?" he asks, shifting his stance, moving a hand to his hip. Trying to make it seem like _cock_ is a word that he says all the time.

"How well you'd like to know, little pretty," the man says, leaning forward so far in his chair that Mello's prepared to make a run for it if it comes to it. Hopes to God it doesn't come to it. He must flinch or something, because the man tosses his head back, laughing like he's just said something show-stoppingly funny. Mello tries not to grimace.

"You ever shot someone before?" the other man asks, still floating in his general good humor. Like this is all some casual sort of business.

"Yeah," Mello says, not saying the word with half as much conviction as he should.

_Conviction is key_, L had told him once. He had been nine and it had been snowing out, Wammys's lake frozen over with thick, grey ice.

"Lying little shit," the man in the chair barks, appearing to enjoy this far more than if Mello had told the truth.

"I could," he says, crossing his arms, "just give me a gun."

There's a rickety ceiling fan in the room and, although it's too cold to be necessary, is shifts a little bit with ever creak of the building. It sounds like someone's doing a tap show on the floor above them. Mello crosses his arms tighter.

"Yeah, right," the man says, lips quirking nastily around what Mello is pretty sure is tobacco, "we give a gun to every toddler that asks for one. Real cunning strategy, that." He sighs, stands. Mello's pretty sure this man wouldn't know a cunning strategy if it walked up to him and shook him by his thick, meaty hand. "If you're not fucking off, then we'll bring you to the boss, I suppose. See how he likes the look of you." He opens the door and his eye twinkles with something that crawls across Mello's skin. "You can suck his cock, too."

The other man snorts, almost delicately. "Leave off with all of this about cocks, will you? Christ." He motions for Mello to follow and heads out the door, too, back into the slowly filling street.

Mello follows.

* * *

Mikami sorts his lecture notes slowly, precisely, as if he knows each and every sheet of paper by touch and cannot abide the thought of a single word being out of order. All the corners line up, all of his pens are parallel, and the creases in his suit look as if they were stylistically designed that way. He looks more like a portrait of a man than a man and Light wants him to stand very still so that he can touch his skin, trace the curves of his bones and see how he can measure up to L.

Light's struck by the sudden idea - delirious and freeing for a moment - that it's not L that he's infatuated with, but infatuation itself. The clawing need for another person that can almost match his clawing need for the Death Note, for his new world. Maybe L is easily replaceable - unnecessary - and all of this trouble can be avoided.

Takada passes him as she leaves the room and says something soft and self-satisfied that Light nods to and ignores in the same breath, shifting seamlessly through the crowd and to the front of the room. He waits there as the last students straggle out, watching the room fill up with empty space and the strings of Mikami's hair drop in front of his eyes, making him frown and toss them back. Up close he's even more solemn, with a passive sort of gravity that is very easy to ignore. Light wants to touch him under his clothes and he wonders if that's normal.

He clears his throat softly, bowing, and Mikami freezes, two or three sheets of paper sliding out of order with the way he jerks slightly, steady movements shattering into a disorganized muddle for a single second, before he bows back.

"Yes?" His voice is cold and self-conscious and, it strikes Light then, really nothing like L's, who is admittedly the apex around which this whole experiment revolves. A sort of compare and contrast. After all, he doesn't want to be like one of those twenty-somethings who marry their high school sweethearts, never knowing if they've even touched the real thing or are just playing at it.

"Excuse me, Mikami-san," he says, smiling in a way that he knows from experience to be exceedingly charming, "I don't mean to bother you. I can come back some other time, if this is inconvenient."

"No, no," Mikami says, seemingly unable to decide between gathering up the lost documents or shaking his head and settling for a staunchly awkward mixture of the two. "Please - " He gestures to the desk, realizes there isn't a chair on the side that Light is standing and lets his hand drop. He is obviously uncomfortable, but so stolid and immovable that the fact of it doesn't seem belittling so much as it does overwhelming.

This is a man who is committed to being uncomfortable and maintains his state as such with a determined tenacity. Light can't decide if he finds him admirable or pathetic.

He inclines his head, makes himself look boyish and unassuming, the way he would glance at L across the desk in the main room, back before. Eyelashes brushing his cheeks and voice softer than it needs to be, he says, "I really liked what you said about morality today." Light isn't actually sure what Mikami had talked about specifically - ethics and that, mostly, though not in a particularly engaging way. "It's something most people don't give enough thought to."

Mikami is idly lining up his pens again. "It's my job," he says.

"Of course," Light says, nodding, but he lets an extra layer of something settle in his voice, wonders if Mikami will pick up on it, knows L would.

L would have already pinned him to the desk.

"Is there - " Mikami starts, and it sounds like an end to the conversation, so Light doesn't let it get that far, isn't done yet.

"That's a nice suit," he says, taking a step closer, arching his body so that Mikami has lean back a bit if he wants to keep his breathing room. He starts to say something but the words puff out softly as hot air and Light thinks no, this is nothing like what L is like, not really, and even if there's a low thrill, it is somewhat empty. L is made of sense-memory, of cool glances and warm fingers and late nights, and there is something to be said for familiarity. L occupies a spot in him because he has dug it out for himself, through proximity and obsession and abuse of power.

Teru Mikami is a nobody in a suit.

Teru Mikami is someone that Light silently and fervently wishes that he could get to like.

He freezes, then his stance shifts, going colder still, and he pushes his glasses up his nose and asks, in as uninvested a voice as possible, "Is this a joke?"

Light's pleasant expression withers a little on his face. "Excuse me?"

"Is this a joke?" Mikami repeats, slowly, as if speaking to a child with some kind of learning disorder. "Are you making fun of me?"

He says it matter-of-factly, as if this is a thing to be expected, which doesn't match up at all with his appearance. L is the sort of person, strange and socially incapable that he is, that Light would expect to be defensive, always expecting the attack, instead of brazen and confidently uncaring the way he is in reality. Mikami, on the other hand, is attractive in a way that is obvious at first glance, that doesn't take weeks and words and close contact to understand.

Maybe he used to have terrible acne, Light thinks, but doesn't really understand. Mikami is strange, though - and whether it's a taste acquired through L or not, Light likes him the more for it.

"No," he says, not really knowing how to continue from there, but making it understood with one word that he is not that type, not the sort to bully or make fun or waste his time on the humiliation of every odd, inconsequential person. "I - no."

Mikami pauses, looks at him with a strange, calculating look that Light can't decide whether he likes or not, and then nods. "I see."

He starts lining up his papers again, all in a row, everything neat and perfect and Light doesn't like that he looks like he's going to walk away. People do not walk away from Light, they follow him. So, he smiles and uses the line that always works when he needs it to, with a cool, appreciative tilt to his voice.

"You should come to lunch with me," he says. "Tomorrow." It's not a question, not even really a suggestion. Teru Mikami is coming to lunch with him tomorrow and that is a fact.

Mikami seems caught off guard by this news and looks down at his hands, at his neat, neat papers, and then back up at Light. He looks cornered and confused and a little too tall for his own body, but he nods. He nods and says, "Alright."

Of course he does.

* * *

Mello mostly runs errands for his new employers, too. And when they say _errands_, what they means is _drugs_. Mello doesn't care and doesn't ask questions and they pay him enough not to need to. He doesn't have to do this for long, just needs enough for a flight to Japan and a little extra to keep himself fed and watered, and then he can start.

He'll find L, he knows. He can feel it, the way he sometimes feels things - and not things like Matt's boner digging into his side when they fall asleep next to each other in the old observatory, cool winter air slipping in around the plastered up hole in the ceiling - but in a gnawing gut sort of way. L doesn't come around much but Mello doesn't need him to, will go to him instead. It's much better this way. Wammy's is too crowded and L doesn't like crowds, at least that's the excuse that Roger gives when L stops by but doesn't come out of his room for the duration.

He doesn't like crowds. He's busy. International security rests on his shoulders. No, you can't eat his chocolate cake.

L's appearance at Wammy's had always been accompanied by a lot of rules, the most important of which is known to every student, from the tiniest toddlers upwards: don't disturb him.

Mello had always disturbed him. He'd wanted to _know_ him, still does. He's going to. He's going to find L and he's going to help him and L is going to _see_, going to understand that Mello is the one, was always the one who deserves it the most. He doesn't care what he has to do.

He doesn't care that there are shadows haunting his path, that if he turns around quickly on the London streets he can almost spot someone dodging out of sight, someone long and strangely familiar, someone Mello pretends he doesn't see, because he knows that it's just psychological. Of course he's going to see L out of the corner of his eye if L is all he thinks about constantly. It's basic psychology.

"Hurry up, kiddie," Bert calls, spitting over his shoulder as Mello slips in through the back door, to the little room where the ceiling fan creaks above them in the cool air and they always wait for the drop-off.

Bert is a complete sleaze and Mello would have him arrested on principal if he could afford it. Watson, the other one, he's alright. He smiles too much and never sits down and wears a jacket two sizes too big for him, but he's alright. For a criminal, at least. He never paws at Mello or talks about his cock, always nods and conducts business efficiently, always makes good-humored jokes to lighten the mood if he can.

Bert catcalls Mello as he leaves and it almost sounds like the row of rubbish bins to his left is laughing in agreement.

The shadows shift. Mello rolls his eyes, tugs his coat on tighter and heads out for another round through the city.

* * *

Teru Mikami looks extremely uncomfortable.

Light watches him from across the street and in through the cafe window. He keeps tugging at his collar and playing with the ends of his sleeves. He thinks that Light isn't going to come. Light loves proving people wrong.

He hasn't been back to see L in days, though he's sent Misa twice. Maybe he should kill the both of them. Maybe he should make Teru Mikami fall in love with him - easy - and then go from there. L is just a decoration from a past life, something he'd brought along with him out of apprehension for the future - he can admit as much now. Light had been terrified of the idea that no one could ever matter as much as him, be as integral to his day-to-day existence, but Light has barely seen him lately, and he doesn't miss him.

The world is so large and there are so many things to own. L, as something he already has complete ownership of, is no longer interesting.

And Misa never has been. She'd practically blackmailed him into dating her. It's reasonable justice that he should punish her for that crime. She'd tried to leash a God, just like L. They're both scum.

Teru Mikami is clean and crisp. Light had looked him up on every database - L's computer has access to them all, and though Watari eyes him suspiciously, he never stops Light using them - and he's never done so much as miss a day of school. His record is perfect and his suit is neat and his self-conscious sobriety as he sits waiting for Light at the table, absently playing with his phone, is a welcome change from L's self-assured impudence.

Light moves to cross the street. One of Tokyo's billboard televisions shifts into another news story, and he watches it flash out of the corner of his eye and stops.

_Breaking News._

He stops, stares at the screen and the boy smiling up at him from it. Feels a bit sick.

_Takashi Sato._ _Age 11. Found dead at 9 o'clock this morning. Corpse mutilated, liver cut out. Sexual assault suspected._

Light feels very sick.

He's stopped somewhat in the street and moves off to the sidewalk, right up to the window of the cafe. He barely notices. Teru Mikami sees him and his brow furrows and he almost raises a hand before thinking better of it, and Light barely notices_._

_Possible connection to another recent case. Police had been closing in on a suspect who died in custody. Heart-attack. Kira strongly suspected._

Light feels very sick. He looks through the window, sees Mikami there - a one-time lecturer at a college; nothing, no one; doesn't even have that nice of a suit - and doesn't understand what he's doing. He doesn't understand. He briefly meets Mikami's eyes and then walks away, checking his phone for the current train schedule.

* * *

It's not Misa again, L can tell from the footfalls, from the uneven way the key is twisted in the lock and the door is shoved open. Light stands in the doorway and Light looks like he's aged quite a bit in the last several weeks, like the jump between innocence and murder has altered more than just his mind - like Jekyll and Hyde, changing outside as well as within. L wonders whether Kira is the ugly part, or the shining, golden thing that he pretends to be. L hopes for the latter. L hopes that he is pretty and good in some ways that make it make sense for L to feel the way he does to look at him, to see him standing there in a sweat of quiet rage.

He is a meaningless person, really, one to be piled in with all of the others, but L has still stopped trying to escape, and L still freezes and shakes through the back of his throat when Light walks forward - doesn't even close the door, just comes and kneels by the side of the bed and grabs one of L's legs - now clad in a pair of somewhat restricting jeans, courtesy of Misa's enthusiastic shopping excursion - and presses his face, somewhat awkwardly and certainly unexpectedly intimately, to the inside of L's thigh.

It's not very sexual, though L wishes it was, because there is not much else to do when chained to a bed and he also rather wants an excuse to take these wretched jeans off, but it's almost like Light isn't fully aware of what he's doing, of the fact that he's wrapping himself around L's leg, like a child clinging to its mother's skirts. He breathes in and his breath puffs lightly against L's hip and makes him rather want a blowjob and also to grab Light by the hand - like a child, still - and take him out of the Japan and take him away, very far away.

Like some kind of shitty romance film.

Light's face is pressed almost to his crotch and L feels like a shitty romance film, and he feels tired and at once very awake.

"Sometimes," Light murmurs, and L thinks he's going to quote his winning line back at him again, the way he so loves to do - but he doesn't. "Sometimes I can't tell if I'm God or you are."

He breathes it out the way you'd breathe some daunting love confession, like he knows it's a perfectly unreasonable thing to say, but he's committed to having it said, anyway.

L sighs fondly at him and remembers, the way he has a habit of doing, that swelling, overtaking, wipe-out feeling of _this is someone he does not want to leave_. "The fact that you need someone in the relationship to be a deity says a lot more than it doesn't, Light."

Light doesn't smile but his expression shifts and L can feel it against his leg. Then he's sitting up, adjusting his position to reach into his jacket pocket and pull out his phone - and he doesn't usually bring is phone into the room, L knows, because he usually searches Light's pockets when he falls asleep here - and types something in. He turns the screen to L and it only takes a moment for it all to settle into a subdued understanding.

The story can't be out in newspaper yet, not so soon, but it's there on the front page of the Tokyo's top news website. _Takashi Sato._ L would be shocked and appalled if he were someone else or trying to make Light think that he's someone else, but he's neither of those things and has surrounded himself with this sort of ugliness since childhood. Murder, rape, dismemberment - it's no shock, no new idea. Not like spontaneous combustion - now that's a real fun case, the kind that B would have taken if B had ever made it far enough to have cases.

L wonders what B is doing now, wonders if he'd find this case - child murderer, likely serial killer; nothing confirmed, two is a line not a pattern - boring, or just be jealous that he hadn't gotten to commit the crime first.

Then L remembers why he hates thinking about B.

"Another one's dead," Light says, still down on his knees, but appearing not to notice. "Same way. Same killer, surely."

L runs his fingers down the slope of Light's arm, not quite touching, just tracing. Some things break if you touch them, and some things poison you on contact. Most things are just things and they don't do anything in particular, but Light is never _just_ anything.

"It could always be a copy-cat," L says, facetiously, because it's the first thing an idiot police officer would say and just because both L and Light are brilliant doesn't mean that they'd be more effective alone, just the two of them. People like Touta Matsuda are necessary for a reason.

Crimes are born out of humanity and genius has nothing to do with humanity; idiocy has everything.

Light scoffs. "Don't patronize me," he says. He flicks his hair out of his eyes. He looks very nice in a blazer and some flattering variety of collared shirt that L knows nothing about. He's dressed up, it's easy to see. He's harried, too, like a nervous prom date sure that the girl he bought the corsage for is going to stand him up. "I hate you," he says, leaning closer. He's still got his phone clutched in his hand and L could make a grab for it, knock Light out with a few well-placed blows and call Watari. It's not just an idle fantasy. He could do it easily.

Light's so close and L uses his free hand to grab him by the jaw, so roughly that Light bucks in his grasp, throwing him off only for a moment before they kiss. It's not very pleasurable at first, feels rather like a battering ram to the face and a poorly maneuvered one at that, but there's something about his hand on Light's face, curling up into his hair, and Light fingers digging into his thighs, pushing up to crawl from between his legs to halfway in his lap, pushing close with an unintelligible force of feeling, of hands and fingers and eyes and lips.

"You're ugly," Light says when he pulls back, but it's a flaccid insult, sounds more like a compliment the way he breathes it against L's lips with a desperate sort of look in his eye. "You're nothing."

L kisses him again. Light kisses back and it feels like a violent hello, a _hi, how have you been lately?_ Only with teeth and tongue and uncomfortable throat noises.

When they pull apart, the phone is on the ground and L watches it for a long moment, not so much deliberating as confronting himself with the fact that he has chosen not to make his escape, despite the opportunity. He wallows in the failure, agonizes over it until it becomes part of him, and the lets it seep in. It's easy to let things be the way they are, for a while - hanging in the balance. Light was supposed to die, or else L was, but at this point nobody has died. It's not prevented, just pushed off, but it gives him time and time is what they need.

Just a bit more time.

"Misa told you, of course," L says, because he wants to get it out of the way. He doesn't want to sit through half an hour of Light's Machiavellian spiel sometime later, so he's bringing it up first. From the way he asks the question, he's sure it's obvious what he means.

"Your name?" Light says, something that's not a smile, but could be, twisting on his face. "Of course." He strokes down the side of L's neck, a gesture that's more grasping than it is possessive, as if Light means to be, but can't quite get a handle on it. "_L Lawliet_."

L's not sure what he'd been expecting - time stopping, darkness encroaching, climactic music - but none of that happens. Light says his name - pronounces it pretty poorly, too - and that is it. L's name has been said to him, out loud and in full, for the first time in coming on seven years. It should feel important, but it doesn't. It's just some words. They have the power to kill him, _Light_ has the power to kill him, sure - but they don't really mean anything. Light has had the power to kill him for weeks now, and hasn't. L doesn't expect him to start trying now.

Light seems to have noticed the generally underwhelming feel of the moment, because he laughs slightly and says, "Your first name is one letter. That's unbelievably stupid."

L tips back, half against the headboard, and pulls one of his feet up next to him on the bed. "I'm not going to get into an argument about ridiculous names with you of all people." The tips of his fingers play with Light's hair. "Now can you go get me something to eat? I've been wasting away all day."

Light pauses, then nods.

* * *

They come at night. Misa's seen enough films to know that this is how it goes: they always come at night.

She hears the echoes, the thumps on the doors, the quiet whispers, and she doesn't even think, just gets down on the floor and crawls under the bed - just like last time. She remembers the scratchy carpeting on her cheek and how it had chafed when she'd cried, making her face red and blotchy and ugly, nobody's pretty princess anymore. It feels sort of surreal to be back here again, but also rather inevitable. Cornered in an alley or shaking and hidden in her bedroom, it's all more or less the same, every time.

They always come at night.

The voices are quiet and footsteps shake through the floor and she's frozen, she can't move, and where are her pages? The pages she kept, they're somewhere in her purse, and if she could just get them, or her phone, call someone, _call Light_ -

Light will fix it. Light will make everything okay again.

She reaches out, small fingers grasping towards the nightstand - it's too dark to see properly, why do they have to come at night? - but then the footsteps are louder and the door cracks open.

There are too many of them and she wishes Rem were with her still and their faces are covered - they _know_ - and she'd even take Ryuk at this point but she'd sent him off and _why are they here?_ What do they want? She hasn't done anything, she never does anything wrong, but they alway come and take things.

"A black notebook," one of them says to the others, who's pawing through Misa's underwear drawer, "that's all we're looking for." His voice is muffled by the mask. Another one speaks, says something Misa can't hear in a woman's voice, and they're touching everything, knocking things over - that's her Miss Teen Idol 2003 award, that's her favorite corset.

She stays quiet, so quiet, doesn't move or breathe or think, just waits -

And then they're gone, but she still stays under the bed. Just lies there, hand over her mouth, trying to keep still until morning, and consoles herself with the knowledge that Light will make everything okay.

* * *

**tbc.**

* * *

**end notes:** I've actually been to Borough Market and it's highly perfect. Sorry about the slowness. Sorry about the scarcity of LxLight this chapter. Sorry for the completely extraneous Mikami. Sorry the quality of writing was honestly very suspect. I don't' know what was wrong with me when I wrote this. Thanks for reading/reviewing/etc. and thanks for all being very wonderful in general.

Oh, and a line from this fic made it onto wtffanfiction (the tumblr blog.) I was very proud. And my really unfoundedly kind and talented friends made a mix for this fic, the link to which can be found on my profile. Thank you again.


	11. the saints go marching

**warnings:** everything you normally get with this fic, along with, uh, vague sexual content between characters under 15.

**notes:** hello! this chapter's a little bit late, because I'm a bit of a late person. I want to start out with a big, sweeping, overly-excited THANK YOU to everyone who came out of the woodwork and reviewed last chapter and, especially, those of you who review every chapter or, at least, every chapter you can manage. I appreciate it so much you've got no real idea. The fact that anyone (besides me) cares about this story is continuously astounding to me. *cough, cough, subtle hint to keep reviewing if you get a chance, cough* but, thank you for reading, either way. thank you for everything.

* * *

**chapter eleven - the saints go marching.**

* * *

_"So man's insanity is heaven's sense."_

- Herman Melville, _Moby Dick: or, the White Whale_

* * *

Light dreams he is a child. He is a child and L is there, only L is the same age as he always is, must have always been - and even though they prickle in the back of his mind, Light doesn't examine the slightly pedophiliac implications therein - he just walks through halls and doorways and is a child and knows that L is with him and that everything is solved. He dreams of the Tokyo zoo, of going there as a boy with Sayu, except he's not there with Sayu, just watching himself there with Sayu, the way you sometimes do in dreams. Their parents aren't with them but it doesn't feel like it matters. There's nobody there, not even the animals. The cages are all empty. Then Sayu is gone and so is he and the world is wiped clear, crisp and clean and untouched; pure like Eden, like before the fall.

He dreams that Kaito Hidaka has come back to life and is sitting next to him in a hospital waiting room making awkward conversation that Light tries to ignore. He's visiting his father in the hospital, and then it's L, and then it's Ryuk, and the pieces of the world - the shapes making up his perception of existence - all sort of slide together and they all feel very indistinguishable from each other, like it could be L or his father or Ryuk and it doesn't matter which. Light sinks right into the cheap plastic hospital chair and then he is Kaito Hidaka and he's the little boy's dead body - liver cut out; _genetic material found at the scene_; semen, that means semen, semen in a little boy - and he is L, too, and L is Kaito Hidaka and nothing is anything, and none of it actually matters, does it?

Something hits him in the foot. He wakes with a start.

He sees the whites of L's eyes, flicking around like those of a cornered animal in the dark space between their bodies. He'd been asleep, too, Light realizes, and feels vaguely pleased. He shifts, wants to groan but doesn't. His thighs ache from what he'd let L do to him.

"Who wants to hear a terrifying story?"

Light's brain twists up on itself trying to rationalize the voice with the body beside him, then tenses as he realizes the situation and turns to face Misa, who's standing by the foot of the bed and digging through her purse, which is balanced on the blankets over Light's feet. He thinks there's a skull and cross bones keychain digging into his ankle.

"What are you doing here?" he asks, voice taut and thirsty. L hasn't even moved, playing dead the way animals do to avoid predators. "How did you get in? You don't even have your own key."

Misa waves her hand, batting aside the undertones of _get the fuck out_, and nodding back at the door where a greying mound of hip muscle is disappearing through the wall. "Rem let me in."

"Rem doesn't have a key either," Light says, with unbearable, early-morning idiocy.

L snorts into his pillow. Misa ignores them both.

"Someone broke into our apartment last night," she says, phrasing it that way even though Light's barely been there long enough to get a decent look at the place, and wouldn't properly consider it _his_ even if he had.

"What," Light says, without raising his voice so it's not a proper question. He uses L's shoulder as leverage to push himself into a reasonable sitting position and then tries to aim a cool glare at Misa, but thinks it's probably thrown off by the way he has to blink the glare from the desk lamp out of his eyes. He thinks of his dreams and is hit with an unidentifiable feeling, a gutting nostalgia - like maybe he's recovered some repressed childhood memory without really remembering it at all - and the sensation seeps into him and then fades as soon as he tries to think on it, flicking out like it was never there in the first place.

He thinks of L beside him, thinks that this situation would be ideal if Misa weren't standing at the foot of the bed, digging through her purse and chewing her black nail polish into little chips that fall and dirty the crisp white of the bedspread. Her make-up is perfectly even, farce touched up into a pale mask, but Light can see that she's been crying in the corners of her eyes and measures her worth, or lack thereof, by how little he cares.

"Someone broke into our apartment," she repeats, finally reaching whatever she'd been digging through her ridiculously oversized bag for and pulls out several folded sheets of paper, waving them around like some kind of badge of honor. "Or a bunch of people, I don't know, but oh my god, I am _freaking out_. I feel totally sick."

Light processes her words and vaguely wonders if their TV was stolen. Do they even have a TV?

"Have an aspirin," he says, lying back down. L is still in the same position, playing at sleep. He's even regulated his breathing and it puffs steadily against Light's face, tickles.

"They were looking for the Death Note," Misa says, abruptly, in a way that no one should say that sort of thing.

Light is up again in a second. "They were what?"

Misa's staring at him like a dog who expects a smack with the newspaper, and Light has half a mind to give her one. "They were talking about a black notebook," she says. "I mean, they didn't find anything - "

She wrings her hands and when Light realizes what she's holding, he leans over and snatches the loose pages of the Death Note out of them, counting them off. Six pages, he'd told her to take out six, and they're all here; two of them written on in Misa's hasty little gel-pen scrawl, the rest bare. He counts them again, just to make sure, just to comfort himself, then nods, handing them back. She takes them slowly, hands almost shaking, and she's scared, he realizes, with a mild sort of disdain.

He moves fully off the bed, hears a clang and feels a weight following him, but ignores it, taking her hands in his, grip far tighter than the boys in the dramas on TV hold their girls. He can feel her shaking in his fingers, like the wing of a bird.

"You're sure, Misa?" he says, watches her wide eyes get wider, watches her try to play it all off, wishes he had never met her. Her usefulness is not worth her upkeep. "You understand what we're doing here, right? You understand the risks?"

She nods, biting her lip. It's bright red and looks like plastic. He wonders what it would be like to kiss her, to fuck her. He feels a heavy pull on his wrist, knows that L is trying to tug him back for some reason, and only realizes - slowly, and without full consciousness of the process - that they are chained together. That L isn't chained to the bed, he's chained to Light.

To make the sex easier, he remembers. Just like old times.

"Yeah," Misa says, after a moment. The chain jingles again. Light ignores it.

"So you understand," he says, leaning so close he thinks that Misa must feel his breath on her face, must be enjoying it, "that if anyone found the Death Note, we'd both be executed, right?"

"She might actually be allowed to live out her days in solitary confinement," L puts in from his place on the bed, voice muffled in the sheets. He sounds like someone who's talking to a television program.

"Shut-up, L," Light says, without turning around.

L moves so that his voice comes more clearly, but no less obnoxiously - and Light really doesn't have time for this right now - "Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed."

Misa's fingernails are digging sharply into Light's palms and he lets them for a few moments before detaching her easily. She's jealous, of course, and can't do a thing about the situation, and it would be slightly gratifying to him - seeing how she more or less forced him into being her boyfriend - if it wasn't so annoying. He grits his teeth, runs a hand through his hair. He'd pace if he wouldn't have to take L halfway around the room with him. Fuck, where's the key? It had been in his pocket but his slacks are strewn somewhere on the floor, and - priorities. Right.

He has to sort this out first.

"Who were they?" he asks Misa, while leaning down to pick up his discarded pants.

She's got her arms crossed, bag clutched to her chest like a designer shield. "I don't know," she says, looking at the mess of clothes with a wrinkle of her nose that's Light's sure is mostly faked for show. "The investigation team? The police?"

"No, no," Light shakes his head, "they trust me."

He glances at L, wonders if he could possibly have had anything to do with this, but then - no. No, of course not. He couldn't have managed it, and wouldn't have, anyway. He loves Light.

"They were speaking Japanese," Misa says, as he turns back to her, "but, I don't know, their accents were kind of weird. They sounded like westerners."

Light sighs, standing up. He'd known this would happen eventually, he'd just hoped it would have been a more direct confrontation, one that he could easily use to lend weight to his innocence. "Watari," he says. It's just one word, but by the way L turns to look at him, eyes wide and quietly forbidding, Light knows that he's right. Has known all along that the old man doesn't trust him, but he can't do anything without L, he's barely more than a butler with a sniper rifle, and he wouldn't kill Light if he thought that there was a chance that L was alive and he could use Light to find him.

That's what he'd been betting on, and that's what -

"If you kill Watari," L says, sitting up in bed, "I will kill you."

"Yeah, yeah," Light says, waving him aside to turn back to Misa, but before he can say anything else, there's a rough tug on the chain - he really should have just left him tied to the headboard - and he's being pulled face first toward L, who's suddenly standing and appearing much taller than he usually does, theatrical hunch momentarily abandoned.

He grabs Light by the chin, titling his face up like one would that of an uncooperative subordinate. Misa gasps ostentatiously.

"It's a mark of inexperience that you think I am pulling punches, but it's not charming and it's not cute and you are not endearing yourself to me. If you kill Watari, I will kill you. It is very simple." Light means to shove him off, but then his jaw is let go and L's hand is around his neck, thumb pressed to his throat and fingers tickling his top vertebra. "You're sloppy, much sloppier than you think you are, and a much easier target than you like to pretend to be."

"Hey!" Misa squeaks, uselessly.

Light does twist out of his grip then, although it feels curiously like he only succeeds because L lets him. It feels strangely like a betrayal, like L has stabbed him in the back, even though L has been aiming a knife at his front for as long as they've known each other.

"I have your name," he spits. He has the notebook, he holds the reigns, he _owns_ L, and L needs to remember that. L is brilliant and clever and he looks good naked, but he is not worth more than the world and Light won't sacrifice it for him. If he needs to kill Watari, he'll kill Watari, and if he needs to kill L, he'll do it without a second thought.

He just needs to make sure he won't need to.

"Fine," L says, drooping back into his normal pose, "kill me. Call my bluff and write it. Make a little flourish coming off the _t_ the way you like to do. You won't and we both know you won't, so stop pretending that you will." His voice is softer now and he looks tired and very mussed, and Light thinks about L's hands around his thighs last night, about the way he'd bent him, the way it had hurt. He still aches slightly, still isn't quite used to the feel of having something, someone, _in_ him.

It's glorious, in more ways than one. Like penance for the both of them.

Misa's just standing stock still, arms still crossed across her chest, not even going for her notebook pages just in case Light had needed saving - he hadn't, of course, but it's the principle of it. A lot of good she is.

He straightens his shirt, looks around for a moment before realizing he hasn't brought a change of clothes. Nevermind, he'll need to go by Misa's - _their_ - apartment, anyway. See if anything was left behind, if he can confirm the fact that it was Watari's doing. He must have operatives, in the vein of Aiber and Wedy, and - where _are_ Aiber and Wedy? They'd disappeared more or less right after L did, and Light had assumed they'd skipped town, had planned to knock them off in due time, but to give it a bit to avoid casting suspicion. But considering they're both in love with him or something, it makes sense that they'd stick around, in case L wasn't, by some chance, dead.

He'll have to look into that. He'll have to look into everything. L's right, of course. He has been sloppy. L has made him sloppy, has been distracting him so thoroughly that he's let the details slip between his fingers, and he can't let that continue.

"Misa, take L for a shower," he says, sneering slightly at the state of his own reflection and unlocking the cuff on his wrist. "If he escapes, I'll write both of your names down."

As he leaves, locking the door behind him, he just barely hears Misa's resignedly emphatic, "Ew."

* * *

Misa leads him with the chain, putting as much space between them as possible. He doesn't struggle, lets her attach him to the shower rail and leans lazily against the grimy tile wall and watches her adjust her hair in the small mirror. She reapplies her lipgloss with an unsteady hand, the smack of her lips overly loud in the small room. The faucet drips and it feels like a poorly made horror movie set - something maudlin to do with Stockholm syndrome, perhaps. Maybe Light really will slaughter them in a fit of peak and no more will be said about.

"You're afraid," he says to Misa. The water droplets keep time, slowly, slowly, one after another. This is a place that's gone bad, or was never good in the first place. It's a far lower standard of living than he's used to, but it feels the same as every other room he's ever stayed in - detached, unremarkable; something completely separate from what he is.

She doesn't look at him. "I don't know what you're talking about, Ryuzaki." She reapplies her mascara expertly, painting herself in thick black swipes. She might be very warm and pink and alive under all of the layers, but from here she is just as cooly remote as her dear, dear Light.

"Of course," he says, without a shred of agreement in his voice. Without a shred of anything, really. He's trying to navigate how he feels about this situation - about Light, about her, about whether or not he hates them or can forgive them for what they are, or whether he could possibly justify caring for Light and condemning her, and if he even wants to. It's best to stay as far as possible from feeling anything, until he can sort it all out properly.

He pulls on his lower lip, stares at an errant crack in the ceiling plaster. It looks like a tree in winter, cemented purposefully above him to make him think of far away, overwhelming things. As if Light could plan out everything, even the minutest details of L's perception.

"You're more comfortable around me than you are him," he says, after a moment. "And you don't even like me."

She looks at him then, turning her made-up doll eyes on him. He admires her commitment, almost - not to Light, particularly, but to all of it. She's gotten herself into a mess of a thing - world domination tends to get messy - and most people in her position would have cut and run by now, devotion or no devotion.

"Don't be stupid," she says, but without the usual giddy inflection. It sounds like straight talk for once, and L appreciates the attempt, even if it's not for his benefit. She scratches at her arm, leaving little white marks across her skin, and L watches them fade to pink. She looks back at the mirror, says to him, "I'm sure he'll get tired of you at some point," with that same honest flatness of voice, "and then I can kill you."

L traces the lines of the tiles, waits for about forty seconds for his heart to stop - just out of curiosity - and then nods. "I'm sure he will."

* * *

Six steps from the front door, two to the right. The floorboard with the scuff-mark on it. It comes looses easily enough - but not too easy, which is why he'd chosen it - and the Death Note looks a little bit like salvation from here. Like it had the first time: him in his cloudy, meaningless little world with everyone else, and the note was a rope, a ladder that pulled him up into the heavens. No, no, it didn't pull him up, he climbed it himself. The Death Note was only the means by which he traveled. The beautiful places he reached, places he _made_, were all because of his own genius. He made his own destiny, wrote his own story.

He touches the cover, the material familiar against his fingers, and feels like God again. He never wants to feel anything different.

"You need to get me Watari's name," he says, not looking up. Rem is watching him, of course, is always watching for some slip up, something she can use to try to convince Misa that he's no good, but it's hopeless and they both know it. By now she ought to be resigned to her fate as his tool. Most everyone else is.

"I've told you before, Light Yagami," she says, dull voice grating on his eardrums, "I cannot give you the name of a human. If you were to make the eye trade - "

"Don't start," he says, flipping through the notebook with one hand. "You just want to get rid of me sooner." If the notebook is here, and the notebook's current owner is here, then that must mean -

He smiles slightly. "Ryuk?"

The familiar split-mouth grin fades in through the wall before him, and then he's looking at Ryuk face to face. They smile at each other the way old acquaintances might as Ryuk moves fully into the room, jagged black body filling the dull space up with his eerily comedic presence.

"Oh, hey, Light," he says, resting his head on his hand. He glances around the apartment skeptically, ugly eyes tracing the dust and disuse with the usual sparkling interest.

"I don't suppose you'll get me his name, will you?" Light asks.

Ryuk scratches his chin with an uncomfortably sharp nail. "Nah, sorry. No can do." He rolls his position, suddenly upright. "Hey, does this mean I'm back with you? Misa's cute and all, but all she does is change her clothes and talk to people on the phone. You're way more interesting."

"No," Light says, tearing out a couple more pages and then replacing the notebook, "this will have to stay here for now, and you have to stay with Misa." He sets the floorboard back in place, positioning it so it blends with all the others. No one can possibly find L, which means nobody could possibly find the note.

Light has to keep his most important belongings well protected.

* * *

"This is assault," L says.

The fan whirs loudly in the large room and a warm summer breeze flows heavy through the windows, making the sheets hot and their skin stick together. B presses his mouth, slowly and experimentally, to L's collarbone.

"It's not assault," he mumbles, brushing the accusation off with a nasal smile in his voice. "I'm 12." He nips and tongues L's skin, and L just lies there sweating and rolling his eyes.

"I don't see what that's got to do with anything."

B's hand slips down, tracing over L's hips, touching the places where the bones press through his skin, imagining that they could pierce it and deflate him - like a bag full of hot air. The body is so strange that way. Or maybe it's the soul that doesn't belong. Both worthy things in their own right, but all jumbled up and wrong when combined. B imagines he could unzip L's skin and pull his soul right out of him, then unzip his own and let L crawl inside. Or the other way around - it doesn't matter, really. He's pressed flat to him, body spread out on top, a perfect mirror, but it's still not close enough.

And L doesn't understand. He's too selfish, too reasonable, and B's love confessions - hands and teeth and dead, brittle things - don't make any sense to him.

"I'm at a naturally curious age," B says, licking the crease of L's shoulder. His fingers tickle the line of L's pants, gaudily - like the porn mags that Grady keeps under his bed and thinks Quillish doesn't know about - mostly just to give L a chance to get used to the reality of B touching him and of him letting B touch him.

L glares at the ceiling and B can just barely make it out in the dark - his eyes are long adjusted, though, and he knows every bend of every feature, could draw it all from memory a hundred times over.

"So go touch yourself," L says.

B touches him in wrong places and kisses him too wetly and feels very silly and very scared and like he could tear the legs off of a thousand bugs and it still wouldn't be as thrilling as this, as touching L and having L's eyes go wide and his head press anxiously back into the pillow and his fingernails dig into his palms. Trying not to be bothered by it, but not succeeding.

B smiles. L twitches in his hand and glares harder. B wants to touch the bones, wants to tie himself to this moment so that he won't float away later, when everything will inevitably blur back out of focus.

"You are myself," he says.

* * *

_Everything that exists of me is you_.

B blinks.

It's raining. It rains too often here. His feet are wet and there are bums fighting in the alley across from him. They hadn't woken him up because he hadn't been asleep, but they'd cut into his mind, interrupted the flow of memory, and L is gone very quickly and everything is dirty and irrational again. Everything falls out of its rows and patterns.

There's a gunshot in the distance. Hm. Maybe it's not bums, then.

B rolls over, tries to crawl back into his head, but the rain is too heavy and someone is sobbing. Someone is always sobbing.

He'd missed London.

* * *

L is toweling off and Misa is texting with vehemence in the doorframe when Light comes back in. L lets the towel fall to the side, making like he doesn't notice, but leaving an open view of his genitalia - one that Light locks his eyes on, then in the next moment, staunchly pretends no to have noticed.

He picks out something for L to wear without seeming to notice that he's doing it, the way one flips on a light-switch when they enter a room - too routine to register. L takes notice of it, though, can't not. Light provides his clothes and Light dresses him and Light could choose not to dress him, if he'd like, could leave him naked, or make him earn it, make him_ beg_, the way any proper captor would do. L's been imprisoned before, and for longer than this, and for a better reason, and Light's brand of confinement is comparatively tame. Perhaps he hasn't got the stomach for anything harsher.

"Misa," Light says, as L dresses himself with careless precision. She looks up, phone automatically forgotten, apparently drowned out by the sound of Light's voice - even mechanically uninvested as it sounds to L's ears. "Before you go to work, file a report with the police about the break-in last night. If you don't it will look suspicious. After that, go about your day as usual. I'll take care of the rest."

Misa nods like a good little solider, pig-tails bobbing. "Right. And the judgements?"

Light gives a vaguely disgusted glance, like he can't believe she has to ask. "Do the same amount as always."

"Yes," L calls over, "continue to slaughter dozens of people every day. People whom you've never met and who have no bearing on your life or present happiness. Enact an authoritarian death sentence that you have no particular investment in simply because your boyfriend tells you to. Brilliant. Excellent."

Light rolls his eyes, and L can practically see him ignoring the words and any substance they might contain. He's so intelligent on most matters, but it's almost as if he has a mental block in regards to Kira - or rather, himself. He's incapable of conceiving fault in any of his own actions, and if he were just a normal 18-year old boy with normal 18-year-old interests, it wouldn't be overly remarkable, and certainly not worth L's time. The fact that he somehow happened upon a magical killer notebook, combined with being brought up with firmly moralistic values, is what makes him more than just a tiny statistic on a tiny chart.

He is all the statistics on all the major crime reports worldwide, the biggest news story on every channel. He is a great and tremendous and unbearably constant overhanging force to every citizen of every country - whether for good or bad, whether they believe in Kira's vision or just attempt to avoid his wrath, he is important. Light Yagami was nobody a year ago. He made himself important.

That's where L disconnects; he was always somebody, _something_. Even before he properly understood what identity was, he had one.

It had been talent, sure - genius and ability and a certain small, sneaking cleverness particular to children of that age - but mostly it was just luck. He'd become what he is now by chance, a circumstance aligned just so. Watari had needed a base from which to build his beautiful machine, and L had been there, empty and unused, a void waiting to be filled.

It's an ugly way to look at it, but then truth tends to color things in unflattering shades.

"I believe in Kira's justice," Misa tells him, hands on hips, lips pouted prettily, like there's a camera around the corner or something. It's more a show for Light than for him, L knows, but he's paying more attention to how his hair looks in the bathroom mirror than anything else.

"Right," he says, not looking at Misa.

L waves his chained arm, drawing attention the fact that he can only manage to get half of his shirt on currently, and Light slips the key out of his sleeve - where he always keeps it and seems to think L hasn't noticed - and unlocks him only briefly enough to switch the cuff to the other hand. He holds L steady with a beleaguered, long suffering sort of look on his face, as if L is some man who'd broken into his home and insisted on being kept and imprisoned and treated like property, and Light is just withstanding the imposition out of the goodness of his dear heart.

L shakes his hair out, gets some water on Light's shirt and grins at the noise of disapproval he makes, subtly drawing his fingers along Light's wrist, so softly he might not even notice. He does, though, freezes for a moment, the way one does when touched by something monumental. L shoves down his grin, even though he's earned it, and Light draws his hands away, leading him back to his usual place on the bed.

L doesn't mind. He is owned, perhaps, but he is not the only one.

"I'll need the case files," L says, when he's chained securely to the headboard, curling his feet up beneath him. "As many as possible."

Light gives him a look as he straightens, like he's waiting for a punchline or something. Misa's texting again, likely doing whatever she can to ignore the fact that her truest love truly couldn't be more uninterested if he put effort into it - and it's quite a shame, too, given that she is such a pretty thing; L's sure he wouldn't say no, were she to ever ask. That's, of course, all dependent on the fact of her surely never asking.

"For the Kaito Hidaka case," L explains, then stops short, correcting himself. "Or not the Kaito Hidaka case, seeing as he hadn't really anything to do with it. The Liver case? The Tokyo Child Killer? Come on, these kinds of things need names if I'm to work on them properly." He chews on his pinky, twisting the skin around between his teeth, worrying the flesh into overturned patterns.

"You want to work on the case," Light says, not bothering the raise it into a question at the end. He brushes a bit of invisible lint off of his jacket, then looks at L with dull expectance. And it's all put on, of course - no doubt Light is calculating the possible risks and benefits of such a liberty, even as his eyes look young and simple, like the eyes of any pretty boy in university.

L pulls at his lip. "Well, yes. I'm bored, Light. I need something to do. I feel like a housewife with limited mobility and without a proper house. Give me something to do. I can do it." He sits up then, without really meaning to, but then commits to the role: wide eyes, errant fingers, pale and bleak and mesmerizing.

He knows how to make anyone feel things. Light is not an exception, as far as this goes.

"I suppose these case files would be in your system?" Light says, brushing at his sleeves, trying to look as unconcerned as possible.

"Don't think you can hack it," L says, "you can't." He leans back against one of his allotted pillows, lumpy and uncomfortable as it is - he misses hotel-fluff and high thread counts - and goes through the process in his head. "The local police force has likely contacted Watari, but I doubt he'd give you any information on possible criminals, especially if it's _my_ information. No, better to go straight to the source. Hack the NPA, I know you can do that." He almost smiles at Light, but thinks better of it. "They'll have as much information as the police normally have - which is not much - but it's a start."

Light frowns. His warm, clever fingers play along the edge of the bedspread. "I'll see if I have time," he says, casually, though L takes it as more or less a guarantee. "I have a lot I need to do today."

Of course he does, mass murder necessitates a busy schedule, but he'll do as L asks. He's convinced himself - for propriety, no doubt - that he's very concerned and horrified by the murders of these children, and even if the only thing he really cares about is stopping the heart of whoever did it, he cares a lot. Kaito Hidaka had been a losing bet and he'll want to right the score, catch the one that got away, if only to prove his own eminence and power to himself - as if he really needs convincing.

Either way, it suits L's purposes, and as Light turns to leave, he calls, without shifting from his balled-up stance, "And coffee, I need coffee. And something sweet. Doesn't matter what. Anything. Many thanks."

Misa scoffs, jabs her phone buttons and stomps out in her heavy boots. Light looks L up and down and almost smiles, before following her out.

* * *

Bert catcalls every day and Mello gets used to it. He spits his tobacco on the sidewalk and Mello learns not to stand to his left. He curses loudly and often and Mello learns that calling people _cuntboxes_ has a rather enjoyably unsettling effect. Bert doesn't like Mello and Mello doesn't like Bert, but they get on with the job, which is the only thing that matters.

Job, money, a plane ticket. Japan, L.

The latter too are rather more fuzzy in conception, as Mello only speaks passable Japanese and has terrible trouble with Kanji. And L - L's probably dead. The thought seeps in on late nights, in his dinky little motel room, when the hum of the dull lamplight crawls into his head and he can't think, can't breathe, it all becomes too much to handle. He wishes Matt were here.

_Fuck_, he wishes Matt were here.

Watson - the other man, the only one he generally meets with besides Bert - is actually alright. He's professional, gets the job done, and doesn't waste words. He and Mello can go whole hours on the pier without speaking, just walking up and down and scanning for unlicensed sellers encroaching on their section of the city. And it's strange to think of it in those terms - _their_ - as if this is a group that Mello belongs to and not one he'd momentarily attached himself to for no purpose further than survival. He puts aside most of his pay for a plane ticket and fake passport and a little something to get him by once he makes it to Japan, but in the meantime, he does have to eat and make rent and replace his boots, which are ragged and coming apart at the edges.

Bert spits when he sees the new ones, shiny and leather and hot as fuck - if Mello's being completely honest - and makes a lot of disparaging comments regarding cock-sucking and bending over and the phrase _'twinky little bastard,'_ which more amuses than fazes him, even though he hasn't heard that kind of thing since he was twelve and some shit for brains who must have gotten into Wammy's by pure luck said something derisive - though much diluted from Bert's usual fare - about Mello falling asleep with his head in Matt's lap in the library.

Mello had beaten the kid so badly he'd needed stitches. Matt had watched on quietly, smoking one of his earliest cigarettes, letting Mello tear the boy up. He hadn't cared, hadn't tried to stop him, hadn't been shocked and outraged the way the rest of the students had been. The boy had been sent to the nurse and Roger had put Mello on a month of probation that involved a lot of studying in Roger's office after class, being told that while _'faggot'_ is certainly not a nice word, breaking someone's ribs isn't particularly nice either.

Mello had gotten a hundred percent on his next three tests, though, and Roger had ended his probation early.

"About Bert," Watson says once, when they're waiting in some shit coffee shop for a pick-up.

"Oh, is he just swell once you get to know him?" Mello asks, disdain evident as he trails his fingertips dully along the sticky tabletop. He doesn't want to hear about how the asshole who is constantly harassing him is just insecure, or scarred from the death of his dear mother, or some other kind of bullshit that people use to excuse themselves for being shitheads.

There's a woman in a seat by the window who keeps glancing at him, probably because of the faux-leather pants that Watson had dropped in his lap the other day, telling him to try to blend. Mello thinks about looking back at her, but doesn't know how.

Watson almost laughs, usual smile twitching larger. "Heh," he says, "no. Bert's a twat. Always been a twat, as far as I know, but he's important in the business, which means that it's important for him to like you well enough. You don't have to be mates, just don't let him get to you, is all."

Mello sips his shit coffee. It burns his tongue, makes his mouth taste thick and uncomfortable, like ash and caffeine. Watson's right, of course, but it's easier said than done. "I thought you were important in the business," Mello mumbles, stirring in more sugar, for lack of anything better to do. He'd rather have hot cocoa, honestly, but admitting as much is not likely to earn him much street cred.

"I am," Watson says, a quiet twinkle in his eye, "but I already like you, so no need to worry about that."

It's a nice feeling, almost, to hear that. It's not as if Watson is the pinnacle of brilliance or anything, but his approval jags warmly in Mello's chest, like something heavy and unfamiliar. He doesn't smile or blush or anything stupid like that, but he feels like he could, maybe. Maybe if it was someone else saying it.

The woman at the window seat keeps looking at him, and Mello shifts in his chair, uncomfortable. She might be pretty, although he hasn't really gotten a good look at her, just a long curtain of dark hair and her fingers scrabbling over the keyboard of her phone. Probably texting her friends, probably just a normal chick with nothing to do with any of the sort of things that Mello is all wrapped up in.

Mello coughs, tries to stomach his coffee again and can't quite manage it.

Watson nods out the window at the two well-dressed men standing on the street corner. "They're here."

As they leave to pay, Mello glances subtly at the woman's table, but she's already gone.

* * *

The computers hum and the investigation team watches him in stunned silence. Without L, the place feels empty, completely devoid of life. He might as well be talking to a set of mannequins.

"They broke into my home, Dad," Light says, voice taut with restrained emotion. It would makes sense for him to become hysterical in this situation, but he hasn't really the energy for it, so he'll instead impress them with his strength of will at being able to hold back his voice, to keep from yelling. "Misa's frightened out of her mind. She was afraid to leave the house this morning. I had to hold her hand down our apartment steps."

He looks imploringly at the group of officers, watching them each fall into excessive sympathy. Light is one thing, but Misa's the ticket, the thing to get them all outraged. Poor, helpless Misa Amane, too pretty to hurt a fly. Heh. He thinks Matsuda might be tearing up.

His father is, of course, worried, but also predictably skeptical. "Are you sure it wasn't just a regular break-in?" he asks. "Couldn't it be unconnected to the Kira case?"

There's a hopeful note in his voice, one Light recognizes from months of conveniently mounting evidence that pointed to the undeniable conclusion of Light's innocence. As much as he'd like for his father to get his wish, to be able to sit back and relax, just for a few days, that's not the direction he needs to conversation to go in.

Luckily, Aizawa steps in to steer it for him.

"I don't know, Chief," he says, slightly stroking his stubble. "It doesn't really add up. It's too nice a part of town to have high crime rates, but not ritzy enough for ambitious criminals to think they could get some really expensive stuff."

Light would take offense at his apartment being deemed of only medium quality if he had spent enough time in it to be an accurate judge as to whether or not Aizawa is right, but as it is, doesn't have time for offense, or any petty thing like that.

"Besides," he adds, "nothing was taken. No, I'm sure it's all connected somehow. I just don't know how." He sits down, then stands up again, displaying his fractured indecision, and of course, making sure his underlying misery regarding L's absence is clearly recognizable. If L were here, he knows they know, this would all be different. He would solve everything, fix the world - at least, that's what Light wants them to think. The truth is more wrapped up in L's thighs, in his cock and hands and stuttering breath.

Even when he's fucking Light, he feels fragile - maybe even more so then - a burnt-rock thing made of glass. Light's mind makes poetry out of L and lights fires from the kindling of words he won't speak. He becomes something wondrous and separate from the world around him, and L keeps him there, floating high and brilliant and immeasurable.

L is a shit and a delusional idiot. L doesn't care about enough things. L is surely not as attractive as Teru Mikami.

And yet.

"Maybe," Matsuda starts, and of course Light had known he would be the one who would. He is so young and incapable, and of course he would. "I mean," he tries again, "couldn't it possibly have been L?" He looks around at the other investigators, wide-eyed and cautiously hopeful. "Maybe he's still alive." He looks at Light, almost apologetically. "Maybe he's still investigating you."

"Matsuda," his father says sternly, before Light can react properly, "that's not possible. We've looked everywhere, checked all of the flights out - "

"No, no, it's an interesting theory," Light says. Pausing to sit down gain, hand to chin. Ever the darling thinker. After a moment, he looks around at the team. "You all know I haven't given up on the hope that L could still be out there, I just - " he looks down at the floor, the shiny leather of his shoes, "I would have liked to think that he would trust me by now."

"But if he doesn't," Ide puts in, looking excited, mostly because since he's been part of the investigation team, nothing much has really happened, and the break-in at Light's had more or less made his day, "not that I'm saying he has any reason not to - but if he doesn't, he might have left headquarters because he was worried about his safety. He might have relocated, and is continuing his investigation from somewhere else. Maybe even out of the country. We haven't seen Aiber and Wedy lately, either, maybe they're with him."

Light can see the excitement spreading from officer to officer, only really missing his father, who still looks stern and skeptical. And this conclusion isn't _exactly_ what Light was shooting for, but it will inevitably lead to what he wants, anyway, and if the belief that L is still alive is necessary to have them cast suspicion elsewhere, then he will deal with it.

"But Light is innocent," his father says, "and besides…." He glances over towards one of the screens, the one that Watari usually uses to communicate to them, and then looks back at the team. And the question is deafening, even though it's been left unspoken.

_If L really is alive, and has moved headquarters, then wouldn't he have taken Watari with him?_

Matsuda is the first one to speak, and he comes up with the right answer for once in his life, the answer Light needed someone to speak: "Maybe he left Watari to, you know, spy on Light!" he says, in a very loud whisper, sounding quietly panicked.

Ide looks thrilled at this development. Light's father looks concerned. Light would look self-satisfied if he could get away with it.

He shakes his head, shoulders straightening. "I can't believe that. The moment we become suspicious and turn against each other is the moment that Kira wins." He glances over the computer. "I have to hold Watari-san's presence in good faith."

The other investigators nod, but look around, and Light is assured then that they, of course, won't.

* * *

The morning is grey and thin and the streets smell like cold smoke. As on most days, they send Matsuda out to get breakfast, and Aiber watches him come around the corner from where he leans against the side-wall of some little shop that never seems to be open, despite the lights always being on. It's early enough that the city isn't full to bursting yet, and there's space enough on the sidewalk to breathe easy and stay hidden.

He doesn't stay hidden for long. "Officer," he calls, moving out of his slump to raise a hand and take slow steps after Matsuda.

"Aiber-san?" the man says, brow going confused. He doesn't bother to fake a smile, probably couldn't if he tried. One of the few boons of idiocy is sincerity - there is no doubt of Touta Matsuda's honest goodness, because there is no doubt of his inability to lie. "What are you doing here? I thought - "

"I had fucked off after L went missing?" Aiber says with a slight smile, catching up to Matsuda but not stopping, just continuing the slow pace and forcing him to follow. "It's a fair bet, and if I knew where he was, I probably would be with him."

"Oh." Matsuda scratches awkwardly at the back of his head, looking to be on the very edge of uncomfortable. "You don't - you don't think he's dead?" He speaks lowly and purposefully, clearly less of a joke when he's out of the spotlight. A real person, almost - which is funny, because Aiber doesn't think of any of the investigators as particularly being individual people; they're just a conglomeration of inaccuracy to him, a blunt tool that Kira is using to corral the world, because that's all he needs to see them as.

It's almost funny, because L, who is impersonal and judgmental as all-fuck, undoubtedly knows them all inside out, from the bare facts to the human truths, to what they'd each eaten for lunch eight weeks ago. L is like that. It's not kindness - L has no capacity to be kind - just a specific brilliance.

Aiber shrugs, makes it look as casual as he can. "And how would Kira get his name?" He stops at the corner, and Matsuda trips over his own feet trying to keep pace, stumbling out a sound that may be the beginning of a puzzled reply, but Aiber cuts him off, flipping open the cigarette carton that had been left on his pillow, half-empty and covered in lipstick stains. "Do you smoke?"

He slips one between his lips and lights it up with a clumsy thumb. Matsuda shakes his head dumbly.

"No, me neither," Aiber says, "but Wedy's gone, so somebody's got to pick up the slack." He breathes in the smoke deep, clogging himself with it. It smells like her and the sentimentality of that thought almost amuses him. He wishes L smelled like something, something besides L, something he could set beside his bed to grab and play around with when he got bored. Something he could keep and have.

"Anyway," he says, watching the streets fill up slightly, "in order to kill L, Kira would need his name, right? And in order to get that, he'd have to know who L was, which means he'd need to be on the investigation team. And the only Kira suspect on the team is Yagami - junior, of course - which means that if L's dead, then Light's Kira, and if Light's definitely not Kira, then L's definitely not dead."

The logic is faulty of course, and if L were here, he'd berate him about it and quote philosophical principals of argument at him and get very huffy and mean because Aiber would only laugh him off, but L's not here and Matsuda isn't the brightest guy, and if you say anything to him in a convincing voice, he'll take it as God's honest truth.

He pulls at his shirts sleeves, then his collar, brow furrowed in thought, then asks Aiber, "So which do you think it is?"

Aiber smiles slightly, almost pleased because Matsuda's asking the right questions. Good boy. "I think it's both," he tells him, blowing out smoke. "That L's not dead, but Light is Kira."

"But that doesn't - you just said - " Matsuda struggles with the words, the thoughts and he pulls at his clothes some more, as if he thinks he can adjust himself into understanding.

"I know what I said," Aiber breathes, dropping his cigarette and crushing it underfoot - even though Tokyo has public ashtrays everywhere, even has special smoking sections on the street; Aiber deliberately ignores them. "I say things all the time. They don't mean anything." He pushes off from the corner, walking towards a decent looking coffee shop where they might have a passable cappuccino - there's too much tea in Japan and Aiber doesn't understand it - and Matsuda follows him in, stopping to hold the door open for a young woman with a shy smile and backpack slung over her shoulder.

They get in line, standing quietly in the soft din of the shop until, after a moment or two, Matsuda asks, without quite looking at him, "Aiber-san, how well do you know L?"

"Better than Light does," Aiber says, turning on his most self-deprecatingly charming smile and aiming it at him. "Better than most people do." He nods at the man behind the counter. "Cappuccino, please."

Matsuda orders several coffees and teas for the team, and even a few pastries - as if there's anyone left at the headquarters who will eat them - and Aiber waits with him, sipping his drink with his head leant against the wood-paneled wall.

Matsuda clears his throat after a moment, looking down at his hands. "I don't want to offend you, or, or pry or anything," he says, "but were you two - um - "

Hmm. So he's more perceptive than he looks, anyway. That's something. He doesn't wait for Matsuda to finish asking the question, even though it might prove vaguely amusing to watch him squirm his way through the words.

"Yeah, we were," he says, not outright explaining it, but not really outright needing to. "And so were he and Light, in case it wasn't obvious." He smirks at the only slightly shocked look that twists Matsuda's face, then heads for the door, nodding back as he goes. "Thanks for the drink."

* * *

His phone rings as he steps out of the cafe. He smiles to himself as he flips it open and presses the speaker to his ear. "Reckless," Watari tells him from the other end of the line. He sounds tired and grim, in a half-amused sort of way. He's no kindly grandfather, that's for sure, but sometimes Aiber thinks he's not as bad as all that.

"Don't worry," Aiber replies, stepping onto the sidewalk to blend into the mass of the crowd. They've been over this - it will work, at least better than sending scare tactics at Miss Amane will.

Watari's voice seems to grow more tired in the moment it takes him to speak. "I'm sure I never do."

* * *

Light's bought a space heater because the apartment's central system is broken, and taking it up with landlord would presumably draw unwanted attention to their situation. Perhaps if Light were a handyman sort it would be very different - he could take his shirt off and sweat heavily and wear a tool-belt and go to work; at least in L's fantasy he could, and those far outweigh the worth of the reality, which would most likely involve a lot of cursing and frustration, especially if Light couldn't get it on the first try. L's actually quite confident in his ability to repair, or at least discern a way to repair, most systems by just looking at them, but Light's not keen on taking him out into the front room and promptly declines his offer.

So, space heater. And bottled water and shitty connivence store sweets and a pen and notepad - no computer, of course, no access to anything that could possibly lead to escape or alert of his location - and a proper lamp or two. L sits on the floor - had tried the desk chair, but it had been too rickety to suit - and Light is spread out next to him.

Two young boys, ages 11 and 12 respectively, with no apparent connection - different schools, different social classes, different parts of town - beyond being young boys. No fingerprints or hair follicles left at either scene, no bodily evidence beyond the semen. It's the same in both cases, of course, and since the rest of the boys' bodies been cleaned to an almost obsessive degree - even the mouth, even the empty cavity where the liver had been removed - it seems obvious that the perpetrator had left his genetic material there purposefully, a sort of mark, a, "Here I am!"

He wants to be caught, or - rather more likely - to be chased.

"It's disgusting," Light says, leaning over L's shoulder to examine the file with the air of someone looking down at a bug that they mean to squash as soon as they can find a heavy enough object.

The crime scene photos clearly upset him, and on more than just a moral level, but he won't stop looking at them. There's a very visceral, almost fearful reaction to the sort of violence displayed, and perhaps once upon a time L had been unaccustomed enough to participate in it, but any feelings of shock or disgust have been wrung from him since, and now it's more or less routine.

"He's a monster," Light says, fingers tracing over the pictures, as if he could reach in and touch the ugliness. Touch it and destroy it and wipe it away, leaving a clean, crisp slate.

L knows better. That's not what you do with ugliness; you have to understand it first.

"He's a person," L tells him, without taking his eyes off of the coroner's notes. "Well, presumably." There is, after all, a Shinigami that occasionally sticks its strange head in on them, though Light promptly orders her out whenever he notices. "A terrible person, but imagining that anyone who commits horrifying acts must be something separate from human paints quite an unrealistic picture of humanity." He scribbles _timeframe?_ in the margin of one of his pages, then turns it.

Light frowns. Of course he frowns. He's made an olympic-level sport out of vehemently disapproving of L's morals and he's going for the gold medal.

"So we should all just resign ourselves to being rotten and destructive, incapable of improving our nature?" Light snipes, sitting up slightly, like he can no longer bear to be close or comfortable with L.

L puffs out a breath, almost rolling his eyes. He generally works alone to avoid conversations just such as this. "If you're asking if I think that the man who murdered and raped those children shouldn't be caught and tried for his crimes - "

"I'm asking if you think that it's unreasonable to expect people to not murder and rape in the first place?" Light snaps, back going straighter, which - touché. He's far from being right, but he's hardly experienced or world-weary enough to think anything but that. That human beings can be controlled and appealed to using only the power of reason.

An idealistic child. L had always said so.

"To a certain extent," he tells Light, not shifting out of his slump. "Mammals kill and fuck and then they die, and although it's a very nice idea to think that we, as a species, can completely disconnect ourselves from our base, violent parts, a number of people slip through the cracks simply as a matter of course." He doesn't need to hear Light's disgusted choke to know that he disagrees. "I believe the common term for it is, 'evil',' or, in some cases, 'mental illness.'"

He does flick his eyes at Light then, to see if he takes the comment in the vein that L intends it, but of course it doesn't even register. When talking about murderers, Light completely disassociates himself from the category, which is ridiculous, seeing as he's killed more people than most of the inmates on death row combined. To him, it's just Godly intervention. He can find no flaw in his own dogma, not because he believes that Kira's actions are objectively right - the last few months without his memories can attest to that - but simply by virtue of it being _his_. There is some level of psychotic narcissism here just waiting to be diagnosed by an eager psychotherapist somewhere. Maybe when this all over, L will forgo the execution and just send Light to therapy.

As if it could ever be that simple.

"And those of us who manage not to succumb to our inherent horribleness should have to suffer because of those who do?" Light spits, with a quiet, determined loathing, like he's flipped on the _justice_ setting in his operational panel and can now focus on nothing else. L half-wishes he could switch him off.

"Everyone suffers in some form or another," L says, turning back to his files, "and the violence is necessary, if not on a personal level, then in the grand scheme. Your quest to erase all of this from the world in one broad stroke - along with turning the planet into an international police state; congratulations on that, by the way - takes nothing into the account but the most basic, uncomplicated facts of the matter - "

Light is leaning forward now, getting in L's face. He rocks between extremes of disgust and obsessive attachment when it comes to L, and - given how much their relationship, whatever it may be, is necessary for Light to maintain his identity - it can't be particularly healthy. Nothing about Light can.

"And yet, I've done more for crime rates in the last year than you've managed over the course of, what is it, a 17 year career?" he says, breathing into L's face. He smells like mouthwash and tea. The animosity drains out of his voice for a moment and then he cocks his head and asks, in what might be a slightly impressed tone, "You've been solving crimes since you were eight?"

L fiddles with his pen, tries not to smile. "Six, technically."

Light deflates then, and if there's a fight to be had on this matter - which there surely is - it's shoved to the back for now, both of them putting it aside in favor of their mutual enjoyment of one another.

"You're brilliant," Light says, looking almost proud, like L's accomplishments somehow reflect on him.

"Yes."

"I'm brilliant," he continues, because he's in that sort of mood now.

"Yes."

"You love me," Light says, going a step further, but L will only humor him for so long.

He rolls his eyes. "Hand me that file, will you?" he says.

Light doesn't hand him the file. Light wraps his hand around L's throat and sends him down heavily into the floor, shoulder blades knocking hollowly with the impact. The pressure is quick and exciting and unexpected - only worth anything because of how unexpected it is. This is not fair. This is not how the scene goes, how they work, trudging on, shoulder to shoulder, ignoring the bad parts and poking fun at the good. L hadn't seen this coming and it's not fair and Light isn't letting up the pressure, isn't stopping, isn't even speaking.

L can't see him. His hands are free enough, although one is still chained to the bed, but he doesn't move them. He wants to see where this is going. Wants to beat himself for not having expected it.

Light's face appears very suddenly, shifts into view, like he's finished putting on his stage make-up and running the lines, and is now fit for performance. L struggles for breath.

"Are you one of them?" Light asks, from up above, from so far away. "A monster? Have you slipped through the cracks?" There's a curious note in his voice, as if he's at once lost his mind and gone more lucid than he usually is. He is touching something that exists, saying something that he actually thinks instead of sweeping around with hand gestures and rhetoric and teenage superiority.

"Do you - " L starts to says - _do you think I am?_ - but Light's either looking for another answer or doesn't want an answer at all, just wants to hear himself speak, wants to say the words and for L to listen.

"You're six years older than me," Light says. Simple, clean and dry; his voice keeps draining and writhing, bouncing from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other. "When I was 12 you were 18."

"So - "

"So, would you have raped and murdered me and cut out my liver?"

It's a very strange question to be asked, but L knows this role well enough; after the sex and the companionship and the quiet assurances, after all that, when he finally has enough evidence, when he pulls the rug out from under the monster of the week and sends off his report to the police, that's when his part changes. He is the betrayer and he always, always gets his man, and he always goes home and has tea and watches the ceiling and cycles through reports for his next case and reboots everything very nicely.

"I don't see any reason why I should have," L says.

World domination is not a team sport and L isn't going to pretend to agree with Light's idiotic dichotomy just to earn favor, just to keep from being choked. If Light wants to argue this, he can let up and stop playing the teary-eyed victim and stop pretending that anything truly bad has happened to him in his life, as if he can identify with the plight of the population he purports to want to save.

"What about simple human violence?" Light asks. "You're a mammal, aren't you? What's the difference between you and them?" His words are less than perfectly sane, but his tone is so even and measured. "What's the difference between me and them? What the difference between you and me?"

"Well, currently," L says, "it's that one of us is about to pass out."

Light lets up his grip, fingers loosening to stroke along L's neck. It should be intimate, but it's not, feels like being touched by metal and rubber. Is it okay to really like someone and also hate them so much at the same time?

"What makes a person evil, L?" Light asks, leaning closer. "Is it action, is it moral views, or is it just something tangible?" He taps his fingers along L's jaw and looks like he's somewhere that isn't this shit apartment in god knows what part of Tokyo. "I can taste it. I look at their faces and I can taste it."

"And what does my face taste like?" L asks.

Light kisses him and it's not at all rough. L sometimes wants to sink into him, to like him in a way that he can maybe like someone like him, but right now it feels uncomfortable, almost squalid in a way. He's so sick of everything that this is and if there was a clean way for them to go on a break - maybe imprison other people for a while - L would suggest it.

"I want to kill you every night," Light says, matter-of-factly, as he pulls back. "I'm so bothered by you. I want to kill you over and over again, but if I just do it the once then you're gone and where does that get me?" He kisses the corner of L's mouth and it's kinder this time, but still no good, still all twisted up in something twisting that Light tends to throw into situations. "Do you ever just want to kill everyone?" he asks, after a moment.

That's a very mad thing to say and Light just might be earning extra-credit on his Kira suspicion with it, but - _but_. "Yes," L says. Light kisses him again and it feels like pulling out the bones.

* * *

It's very easy to get his number from the front office and even easier to get him to agree to another lunch meeting.

The cafe is too loud, the tea isn't very good, and Mikami won't stop wiping his hands. Light smiles, leans in, and draws the toe of his shoe up Mikami's calve. He freezes, goes stiff, and wipes his hands again. He's either very uncomfortable or very turned on or both.

"What are you doing, Yagami-kun?" he says lowly.

Light's smile twitches. "I'm seducing you, Mikami-san. Can you not tell?"

Mikami takes off his glasses, wipes them, and puts them back on. Light wonders if he's ever been comfortable anywhere in his life, thinks probably not.

* * *

Mikami doesn't kiss anything like L, but that's okay, that's exactly right, because L kisses like dust and tastes like crumbling civilization and salt and fear and unworthy things. L rocks between being absolutely necessary and completely unbearable and Light can't decide what to do with him or do about him. He sometimes wants to murder him graphically and sometimes wants to kill him very softly, drug him just a little too much, put him to sleep and then lie on the bed next to him as he drifts off into non-existence.

It would need to be a bigger bed. The room would need more windows. Light wants to smash things and wants to scribble in the Death Note. He can't kill Watari, not because of L, but because he can't manage to get his name. That's fine. There are plenty of other people that could afford to be gotten rid of and, as it turns out, Light _can_ hack into L's system.

He'd written the names down before meeting up with Mikami, and as he presses him into the mattress, the analog clock at the bedside ticks right down to the minute.

_Timothy Morello_, _Melissa Kenwood_. So long, goodbye, terrible to know you. He thinks about tracking down everyone who's ever touched L at all and killing them in creative ways, but it feels like far too much work for someone so worthless.

Mikami is rather hard work - enjoyable, malleable, different - but hard work. He squirms and gasps like he's afraid to come, and Light has to bodily drag it out of him, but it's worth it. It makes him feel like God. L just makes him feel diseased.

Another child is murdered two days later, a girl this time. Light prints out the file and brings it to L, box of donuts in hand, charming smile on his face.

* * *

**tbc.**

* * *

**end notes: **I'm sorry all of their relationship problems are stupid. I'm sorry they're both a bit stupid. I must be as well, since I've committed myself to writing these bastards. Apologies to the reader who was so relieved last chapter that Light didn't sleep with Mikami. I felt so bad when I read that, because this one had already been planned and drafted. On the one hand, I'd like to make everyone happy, but on the other, I'd like to make everyone yell and cry and threaten to punch my lights out. Ideally, it'd be a combination of the two.

Thank you for reading. I would really appreciate any and all feedback, good or bad, but I still love you all whether or not you review.


	12. the cure for death

**warnings:** all the usual. and a bit of gore. and slight dub-con. and, uh, attempted non-con (and not involving the two characters you'd think.)

**notes:** YOU MEAN THERE'S PLOT IN THIS CHAPTER? WHOA, JUMP BACK. I know, it's an unlikely event with this story, so I felt I should warn you. For real, though. Things start happening. Lots of Mello this week, and a surprise guest appearance by someone who will surprising to absolutely no one ever. Sorry this update was ridiculously slow. I was 1) traveling, 2) sick and 3) sewing at a break-neck pace to finish my cosplay in time. animazment this weekend! weee!

* * *

**chapter twelve - the cure for death.**

* * *

_"As if, darkness were indeed the proper element of our essences, though light be more congenial to our clayey part."_

- Herman Meliville, _Moby Dick: or, the White Whale_

* * *

"I fucked someone else," is one of the first things Light says.

There are no pictures on the walls here. He likes that. His parent's house is covered in pictures of him as a child. He's the same person, when it comes down to it, as he was and as he's always been, but he resents himself anyway simply for ever having been even slightly different from what he is now.

"Misa?" L asks, without looking at him. "I'm sure she appreciated it."

"Not Misa," he says, setting down the box of donuts. L does glance up then and he looks like a machine with all of his wires gutted out. Light wants to imagine that it's blatant jealousy, that it's raging in him like a storm, but is pretty sure that that's mostly just L's face.

There are no pictures. He has no pictures of L, which would be unremarkable - why would he want pictures of L? He's not particularly good looking and he's right there, besides - but for the fact that no one has pictures of L. No one. Light makes a note to himself to buy a disposable camera next time he goes out. It's an owning gesture, in some ways. They say a photograph can steal your soul.

L sits up. "Hmm. Light-kun has so many girlfriends, it's hard to keep track."

"It wasn't a girl," he says. L is on the floor with a mess of papers. Light sits down on the bed and shrugs out of his jacket, slips off his shoes. "Do you mind if I get some sleep? You can bounce your theories off of me afterward." He lies down, spreading out and pulling the top-sheet up to his hips. The space heaters have made the room pleasantly warm. L's bed is always unmade.

The pillows smell like L in a slightly disgusting way and Light makes another note to wash them. It's all little notes these days. Grand plans are tiring and he's got plenty of time. L takes up his time these days. L is what he has these days. That -

That's a disgusting way to think.

Light's skin is itchy. He waits for L to respond and feels his skin heating up, wants to strip but doesn't want to be naked. He sits up in bed. "Did you hear me?" he asks, throwing nonchalance to the wind, because it clearly isn't working. His voice sounds loud. The heater is louder.

"You were getting some sleep?" L says, glancing at him over his shoulders, and Light can tell from the look on his face that this is all a joke to him. He might be jealous and he might not, but he's too much of a stony bastard to show or tell or give Light any emotional satisfaction. He almost smiles and Light knows it even though L gives no indication of it and Light wonders if it's L or him who's having these thoughts, L's thoughts. Maybe L is just a projection of himself and doesn't exist at all. Maybe he's locked his own mind in a windowless room.

No, that's not right. That's crazy in the first place, but in the second place, that's not right at all. L is important because he is proof of life, of sentient, worthy existence beyond Light himself. If L is Light then the world really is rotten to the core, and there isn't anything worth saving.

"I said I slept with someone else," Light repeats. He hears his own annoyance. He's ashamed of it, but also proud in a way, because no matter how immature he gets, he's still the obvious adult in the relationship.

"I heard you."

Light is sitting up in bed and L is sitting on the floor and it's too hot in the room. "You know I could escape if I wanted to," L murmurs after a moment, "don't you?"

Light is sitting up in bed and L is sitting on the floor and -

"Yes," Light says.

He gets out of bed and sits down next to L on the floor. "Ask me about the man that I had sex with." His words are too hot in the hot room and, before L can do as he's told, Light reaches over to the space heater to turn it down. "Hold on." He moves back. "Okay, ask me."

L tilts his head, like he doesn't understand, but it's only for a moment - it only takes L a moment when it comes to any puzzle - then he smiles indulgently. "Tell me about the man you had sex with, Light-kun."

The honorific is representative of something - maybe of the boy that there are photos of all over Light's old house; pictures of a child's stolen soul - and Light would resent it if he could remember to. He'll make a note of it. "He was nothing like you," he says. He wants to lay his head on L's shoulder, but that feels like something he can't touch right now, so he lies back on the floor. The carpeting is dirty. Light is so tired. "I thought he was at first, but he wasn't. He was unremarkable. He was just like the rest of them."

"I'm going to tell you a terrifying secret, Light-kun," L says, trailing his along on the floor next to him, touching the dust with his flat, blunt nails. It's all so dirty. Light makes a note to vacuum.

He slips his hand into L's. It's very cold in comparison, like shoving his fingers into a creek. "Tell me," Light says. Time passes very quickly all of a sudden and it feels like minutes have elapsed, even though it's quite obvious they haven't. "Tell me."

"The secret is that _I_ am just like the rest of them," L says in a whisper that sounds too loud. "The secret is, so are you." He presses his lips to Light's knuckles, one at a time.

"No," Light says. He might be laughing, but then suddenly he's not. He's definitely not. It's too hot. He wants to turn the heater lower still. "You're lying."

"You'll grow out of this someday, I'm sure," L says, brushing Light's hair out of his eyes. "We all go through phases where we want to destroy the world."

But no, no, that's wrong. Light is God and Light is a savior. Light can do anything. Light can fuck guest lecturers and Light can own people and Light can walk with monsters at his back. He wonders where Ryuk is. He doesn't miss him, but he's used to him, and it feels wrong that he's not there, grinning through the walls.

L is pressing something cold and dead to his forehead and it spikes his blood wrong.

"I want to save the world," he tells the cold dead thing that is actually L's hand. "I'm trying to save the world."

"You're burning up," L says.

Light smiles. Light smiles because _finally_ someone understands.

* * *

"He put his cock in you yet, or are you saving that honor for me, princess?" Bert says, tapping his ashes out. The ceiling fan is on today, even though it's cold enough already that Mello's fingers shiver in his thin gloves, and Watson has just gone in the front room to talk to some man that Mello's not allowed to speak to and couldn't care less about.

"Fuck off," he tells Bert, not looking up, and trying to keep the teeth-grit anger out of his voice. Bert is a fuck, but it's not as bad as it could be. That's his mantra of late: not as bad as it could be.

Bert's eyes twinkle at him, lips twitching, and he doesn't want Mello to keep quiet or calm, wants screaming and tantrums and childish things, little boy things. Fucking pervert.

"I'm only trying to help you, doll," he says, flicking his cigarette twice in quick succession. "Wat, yeah, he's alright on the job, but a right sod outside of it. Best be on your guard, or he might slip you it without you even knowing." He quirks his eyebrow and it's ugly - _uglier_ - the sort of casual obscenity that Mello's trying to force himself to be okay with.

"I think I'd fucking notice," he says, shoving his hair out of his face. It slips from behind his ears. Bert says it makes him look like a girl. Mello thinks Bert looks like the wrong end of a motorcycle accident, but has kept as much to himself out of sheer self-preservation.

"Of course you think you fucking would," Bert laughs, thick and dirty and mocking with every breath. "Little poof."

Could be worse, Mello reminds himself. He could be stuck with an asshole who actually has more than one insult. "You're the one who keeps talking about cocks," is all he says in response, picking the dirt out from underneath his nails. Soap, he needs to buy soap. Soap and toilet paper and new socks. People things, things anybody can buy. It's not that hard, not so bad. He's just living like anybody would.

Aside from running drugs for a gang, of course, but then the devil is in the details and Mello's always been a good Catholic boy.

Bert knocks him on the side of the head with the back of his hand, not overly rough, but it's more the principle of being shoved around by someone with a negative IQ and some big ideas for himself than anything else. Could be worse, of course, but still.

"Shove off with the lip, alright?" Bert says, more with the air of someone handing out advice than reprimanding. "You think that's going to get you far?"

"I think _I'm_ gonna get me far," Mello tells him. He pulls his gloves back on.

"Spirited little bastard, aren't you?"

Mello ignores him. Watson comes back out in the next moment, and Bert's expression shifts ever uglier. Watson doesn't even glance at him, just nods at Mello and motions for him to follow. He stands, barely resisting the urge to flip Bert off as he goes.

* * *

"What do you mean? How'd he get sick?" Misa squeals into the receiver. L winces and turns it to speaker as Rem watches on, head stuck halfway through the wall. He wonders if it's uncomfortable, to fade into matter, or if, to a Shinigami, the human world is already an uncomfortable place to begin with.

"The same way anyone does, I'd assume," he tells her, leaning back against the wall, "unless there's some special godly caveat that no one's told me about."

Light is in bed, wrapped up in blankets now and mostly asleep, although he rolls around and groans and mumbles incoherent abuse at L every so often, which is at least evidence that he isn't too altered by his incapacity.

"Ryuzaki!" Misa snaps, the admonishment dressed up in pretty little breaths and frills of speech, but underneath that, he can tell that she's genuinely worried, which is something to her credit. She's like Light in some ways, but very unlike him in others, and this is one of them. She is so steeped in romance, in pretty affectations of love, that it feels less genuine than it probably truly is.

"He'll be fine, Misa-san," L tells her. "It's just a fever. He'll sweat a lot and be pale and sickly for a few days, but it will all turn out fine. I just need a few things - more bottled water, some extra blankets, - "

"Books," she says, in the same _eureka_ sort of voice that Archimedes surely used, "he likes books!"

"Books would be fine," L says.

"I have a shoot, but - whatever, I can cancel." He can hear the jingling of her purse, covered in charms and keychains as it is, in the background, off-shot of the hurried rush of her breathing.

"And the taskforce?" he asks,.

"I'll tell them Light has to stay home sick," she tells him sternly, "so don't get your hopes up. You're not going to use this as a chance to escape."

L sighs, glances over at Rem. He knows that well enough.

"I'm sure I wouldn't dream of it," he tells Misa. "Although I do have the key and Light's cellphone, so you'd better hurry up. Bye now." Her shock is audible on the other end, but he hangs up before she can go into hysterics. The line clicks off and, if he moved his fingers fast enough, he thinks he could probably -

But then Rem's skeletal hand is tugging the phone out of his grip, her eyes thin and wary, and his chance is gone. She holds the phone at arm's length, as if she's mildly disgusted by it, and the look she shoots him communicates the same impression.

"You should not have said that," she tells him dully. "She'll panic."

"She'd do that anyway," he huffs, slumping back into the wall. Light's breaths have gone even. He's flushed and pretty, even in sickness. L feels ill for wanting to touch his heated skin, to fetishize his pain, which is rather unreasonable, seeing as he has no qualms about it most days.

"You're not getting out," Rem says, and he doesn't doubt her resolve. It's clear she doesn't like Light, but she seems quite dedicated to carrying out his orders nonetheless. As soon as Light had passed out, L had gone for his phone, for the key, for the first chance of escape - he hadn't planned it that way, hadn't even really decided, it was just instinct; he'd seen the sky from the bottom of the well and he'd jumped, reaching for it - but Rem had stopped him, had taken away the ladder.

She looks like a wisp of ethereal decay, but she's solid, if only sometimes, and she'd had his wrist twisted between her bone-rot fingers before L had even so much as flipped on the phone, snatching the key out of Light's jacket with the other hand. It's a bit ridiculous, because he hadn't exactly taken her into account in his calculations - she's a god of death, why should she play their human games? - but it's become obvious that he should have. L's surety of his own possibility of escape may now have been no more than posturing, unless he can reason with her, which doesn't seem altogether very likely.

"You hate Light," he says, as less than a question, but it's still probing, and she looks at him as if she knows that.

"Yes."

He smiles a tight, lying smile. "What a coincidence, so do I."

She tilts her head the the side, and the thick tendrils of something that surely isn't hair move with her. "Do you think that I'm stupid?" she asks. She sounds annoyed, but then no more than usual. "That because I am a Shinigami I must lack understanding of human relationships? He puts himself inside you." She spits the words. The air around him spins with her presence, and it's not quite ghostly and it's not quite godly, but it's something thick and recognizable. Like death without the rot, without bodies and dirt and worms and thin spring mornings in a graveyard that smells like grass and petrol.

L scratches his head and glances over at Light.

"I put myself inside him sometimes, too, you know," he tells her, in what might be an attempt at levity but is probably just mindless, guilty floundering. He is guilty, in his way. "But that doesn't matter so much, when it comes to my job."

Rem's eyes tilt sideways, or look as if they do, and then she's moving very close to him, so close he thinks he should feel her presence - some kind of weight or heat or chill, the way you would with a person - but she is not a person and it's just empty air, only with a face that stares back at him.

"Would you kill him," she asks, "right now?" She looks at Light, sounds almost excited. "I wouldn't stop you. If you killed him, Misa would be free."

Ah, and that's what it is, isn't it? The girl. They always do it for the girl. "Misa is your stake in all of this?" he asks, not because he needs confirmation, but because he needs this angle, can use it. If he could just - just -

"I'm her Shinigami," Rem says.

"I see," L says, head titling to one side. "Not Light's?"

Rem gives a lifeless bark of something that might be derogatory laughter, and L takes that as confirmation. Which means that there must be another, which means that Rem isn't L's only chance at bargaining, isn't his only possible ally. If the other one hates Light as much as she does, perhaps he can -

"You're avoiding the question," Rem tells him, leaning in closer. Her eye blinks at him disparagingly. "Would you kill him, if you were promised escape?"

L glances at the door. This is a terrible question, very unreasonable, and he resents its being asked. "Misa will be here soon," he says.

"Avoidance," she snaps at him.

"Reasonable precaution." He pushes himself up slightly, even though their disparate sizes cannot be much accommodated for. "I know it probably doesn't make sense to a great and glorious god like yourself," he says, and the humor in those words is detectable, if not obvious, "but we humans, we're petty. Death isn't enough. Death is empty. I want defeat. I want to win." He looks at Light, curled and shivering under the blankets. He's flushed and L would still like to touch him and still sees the slightly unhealthy implications of such. "And, I want - I want him to realize that he's wrong."

Rem doesn't snort - he's not sure that she can - but makes a noise of relative equivalency. "And you want to continue to exchange bodily fluids with him."

L flicks his finger against Light's forehead, brushing his hair up and out of his eyes. "Yes, that, too."

"Typical. You humans are all alike." Rem doesn't look angry, not anymore than usual, and she slinks dourly back into the corner, phone and key still clutched in their respective hands. "And you're all in love with Light Yagami."

L wants to laugh, but doesn't. "Not all of us. I'm sure there's someone, somewhere who isn't. Maybe in Europe, or the US. You should check."

She glares at him. He lays his head down next to Light's, which is likely the antithesis of practical health, but he's so pretty and so imprecise in this moment, no longer a picture of studied glory, but a frazzled, messy human, just like the rest of them. He's shivering and groaning and surely hating his current existence, finally on level ground with everybody else.

Things get dim and dark and hazy, and he thinks he falls asleep before Misa gets there.

* * *

She drops the supplies he'd asked for on the bed next to him, and not with particular kindness. He blinks up at her, trying to sort her face in his mind for a moment - it all fades out with sleep and suddenly he's not sure where he is and she's Wedy, poised over him with a hand on her hip; he almost winces for the nonexistent cigarette smoke - and she huffs and he blinks again and it's just Misa in pajamas, looking harried and disapproving.

"You scared me to death, you know," she says, shoving a stack of books into his lap and going over to tuck another blanket around Light. "I though you really might escape." L goes to reply, but she's not even looking at him anymore, lips pressed to Light's forehead. "Get better, okay?" she says softly, and it's strange how quiet and intimate it is. It's easy to forget sometimes, but she must really care for him, given all that she's been willing to do. She doesn't act like it, doesn't act like anything real, and it's easier to see her as an obnoxious prop than it is a human person, but if L does that, he's more like Light than he ever truly wants to admit to being.

"He'll be fine," L says, sitting up. His head feels heavy and he hopes she's brought coffee.

Misa brushes the strands of hair out of Light's eyes, hands soft and imprecise. "I should take him home, or to a doctor. He needs proper care," she says.

"I have medical training."

She shoots him a look that squeals just as indignantly as anything she ever says. "So do doctors."

L plucks at his lip. "Yes." The shadows are long in the room. There are no windows and the lamps are too cheap. It feels old here. He looks at Misa. "He'd rather stay with me," he tells her.

Misa looks at him, looks back at Light, and glares at both of them, though with very little true malice, and huffs, settling down into a chair at the bedside. That, of all things, is not what convinced her, and L realizes, rather suddenly, that she was always going to let Light stay.

They sit in silence for a few tiring minutes, Light occasionally blinking awake and mumbling and Misa trying to force feed him a bit of water, with it all ending in a slow, silent catastrophe. What do you do when everyone in the room vaguely hates everyone else?

What have they always done?

"You spoke to Rem?" L asks her after a while.

Misa nods. "She told me how you tried to escape as soon as Light collapsed. You probably would have just left him there on the floor if she hadn't stopped you, huh?"

"Probably."

That makes them both quiet. Light blinks awake a few minutes later, looks at them both with hazy, displeased eyes, drinks some water, and then goes back to sleep. L tells Misa to go home. Misa tells him that she can kill him anytime she wants. L scratches his neck. Misa examines her nails.

Eventually he takes back up the files for the Kaito Hidaka case - Light still insists on calling it that, despite Kaito Hidaka being an apparently innocent bystander, and L finds it difficult to commit to arguing such an irrelevant point, so it's more or less become the case's name - but he gets little work done with Misa staring at him with mild, resigned dislike through-out the course of it. It's almost an hour before he sighs and hands her a file.

"You can tell names from photographs, right?"

She looks at him cautiously, then nods slowly. "Yeah."

"Please take a look at the suspects listed on this page and tell me which, if any, are using fake names," he tells her, and adds, after a beat, "and don't kill any, mind you."

She stares at him. "You want my help on a case?" Her hair is back in a pony-tail, but there are strands slipping out of it, falling messy against her neck. She is a very pretty little thing, and although he understands Light's rationale to a certain degree, he thinks it's probably more fortunate for Misa to have attached herself to someone like Light than someone like L. They are both terrible people, in their ways, but then so is she, and Light is at least senseless and childish - he knows not what he does, no matter how precisely he measures the world. L is different.

L could take someone like Misa Amane apart bit by bit; L has before.

But she's staring at him wide-eyed and pretty now, just like her boyfriend will do, and - although the difference in age is not large - he feels oddly like some older man charged with looking after two enormously helpless children who are incapable of doing a thing for themselves.

So he looks at her as kindly as he knows how to look at anyone, and nods. "I'm sure you'll be much more helpful than Light. All he does is sit around and criticize my technique."

Misa's eyebrows go up and she softens for a moment, almost smiles. "Just on cases?" she asks. Yes, very pretty.

L could possibly force himself to smile back, but it strikes him as altogether too cruel, so he just nods again, if with something of a tired humor in his glance. "Yes, just on cases."

There is a moment of quiet, fortuitous mutual acceptance that disappears as soon as Light rolls over, groaning softly for, _"Ryuzaki,"_ and looking very pathetically ill. Misa glares at everything and nothing in particular, hunkering down over her file like it's some sort of prize that she's won. L drags his thumb along Light's chin and says, softly, "Ryuzaki's not here anymore."

The night takes a long time to become day, and Misa falls asleep with her head on Light's abdomen. L doesn't sleep at all.

* * *

He feels it in him. Something hot and tearing and sick, and he can't tell it from himself, from his body or his bones. There's something cool on his face and it steams up his skin. "You're sick, Light," its voice says. "You're just sick, calm down."

_You're hurting me,_ Light thinks, and thinks he says it, and then he's blinking and L's leaning over him, eyes wide and shocked and he looks young, like a child, like their positions are reversed and Light thinks, _he'll go, he'll leave, I need to wake up and stand up or he'll get away_, but he also thinks, mostly thinks, _you're hurting me._

There is water on his face and L's hands are clawing at him and he claws back and someone else is speaking and he says what he doesn't mean, which is, "Get off, get off."

Then there are no hands on him and the dim space grows patterns and he's staring at the ceiling and then the ceiling is staring back. Light is terrified for a moment, like that first instinctual reaction, the first day of a long and glorious companionship. He'd seen Death in his bedroom and he'd greeted him like a friend.

Death is floating above him now and he says," Hey Light, you're looking kinda rough."

And this is okay, this is his friend. This is who he is and this is what he owns and what he rules, and where is the Death Note, where is the Death Note? Kaito Hidaka is getting away, Kaito Hidaka came back from the grave that Light had put him in and slaughtered all the children, and they'll be more, there will always be more, bodies upon bodies upon bodies - and why do we do anything but burn the dead? Why make graves? There's not enough room in the ground and not enough room for the ash, either, all the ash in the world, and Light has to kill Kaito Hidaka again, and Light has to kill L. Light has to kill L and Misa, too, and Rem, and then it will be just him and Ryuk and a clean, safe world.

A world with only good people in it.

"Bring me the Death Note," he says, and he knows he says it, but the first few words fade out as he speaks them and the last two are the only ones that make it out into open air, but it's okay, it's okay, that's all that matters.

Ryuk keeps grinning. From somewhere to the side, Light hears L's quiet, unamused voice. "He's delusional, of course."

Of course. Of course of course of course - and what does _he_ know, really? He's a human being, with a human body, and he's never touched anything big or bright or glorious, he runs from beautiful things because he knows they will prove him ugly in comparison, and why, why of all of the people in the world - billions of people in the world, some of them must be good - why is it _L_?

Why does he have to own a thing that eats at his skin?

* * *

They've turned the space heater back up, although Light flits in between being violently hot and wracked by shivers. Misa mostly sees to him, although she's constantly dropping things and making disgusted faces and flaunting her incompetence in a thoroughly unconvincing way. It's possibly endearing. He could possibly wish them well from this angle, but likely only because Light is passed out and his distaste for her is masked by that pretty, sleeping face.

L's half glad that Misa's here. If she wasn't, he doesn't know what he'd do. Probably strip Light and let him shiver and fuck him in his sickness. There's a frightening poetry in that image, and although in practice it would probably be less than enjoyable, the idea of it sparks something in him.

"Ryuzaki, he needs to go to a hospital," Misa tells him eventually. She might be right. They haven't got a thermometer but it's easy to see that his fever's high, too high, but then it hasn't been very long and in all likelihood he'll come out of it just fine.

There's a niggling part of L that's almost using this as a test. If Light kills himself with a fever, then good riddance. The world will be saved and L will be free and everything will work out. If Light dies then L gets himself back and the world resets and is made safe again.

And if Light lives, then L gets Light.

It's a win-win sort of situation, except for the part where they all lose.

"If you take him," he tells Misa, "I'll likely escape while you're gone."

Her thin brows shoot down and she crosses her arms and she looks like 99 percent of her doesn't believe him for a moment, but there's always that voice, that little voice of weakness. "You won't," she says. "Rem won't let you." She sounds sure, but she's not.

"Ah, of course," L says, then goes quiet, quiet enough for her to think that's there's something hidden in his voice, the edge of a genius plan. Truth be told, he has none. His only possible avenue of escape is in Rem, and in order to get her to work with him, he needs to speak with her, and in order to speak with her, he needs to be alone. He might be better served to let Misa take Light, but then he might have been better served to let Light go a long time ago, and he hasn't yet.

It has to be a new game now. It used to be about the burden of proof, about catching Light out, proving his superior intellect by crushing one that possibly matches his own. That's over and done with. If he gets out, then he has enough evidence to convict, and if he convicts then the game is over and that's the end. They need a new game, so L will fashion one.

It's not enough now to crush Kira's empire. He has to crush the man - _god_ - himself. He has to _make_ him understand, and in order to do that, he needs to be around him, as much as possible, as close as possible. Needs to crawl in when he's at his weakest and find the parts that will bend, the parts that L can carve his name into.

_L Lawliet_.

They all know his name. It's rather freeing, in a way. He's got the noose around his neck, but no one is kicking out the chair from under him.

Misa shoves up her sleeves, rubbing her hands nervously along her arms and then shoving them back down. "I love him more than you, you know," she says. Her eyes blink pretty at him and he wonders what it would be like to be Misa Amane, how it would feel to be trapped under smooth skin and false smiles, a whole world standing up and clapping as she performs for them. And then he thinks, maybe, that he doesn't need to swap bodies to know the feeling well enough.

"You should go home," he tells her. The heat in the room is making his skin itch.

She slumps back, challenge unmet, looking as if she couldn't move if she wanted to. "I'm not going anywhere."

Light breathes thick and violent next to him, then subsides. L shifts, glancing back at the Kaito Hidaka files, then back at Light, says, "When he wakes, I'm going to fuck him. Would you like to stay and watch?"

Misa stops, startles, but quickly realigns herself, twirling a bit of hair around her fingers. "Yes," she says, meeting his eyes.

L thinks she, contrary and stumbling, is so like Light. He can't tell if it makes him like her or hate her more, only that the comparison is dug so deep into his perception of her that, in his eyes - loathe as he is to think himself that sort of blind, daily idiot - without her love for her darling lover, she would be less than what she is. Not by worth, but by sheer critical mass. Light weighs too heavy to leave no marks, and Misa is a thing made for marking.

The problem is that L is, too.

* * *

Light wakes to L's hair scratching at his skin. He hates him very much in that moment, for how uncomfortable he's made everything, for how close he is, but then L's handing him a bottle of water and Light is gulping it down, sloshing some on his chest, but he doesn't care. His body feels worn, but in a strong, survivalist kind of way, like he's just run several marathons without noticing.

"How do you feel?" L asks. He's looking at Light with something curious in his eyes, something that wasn't there before. Light thinks he might be too exhausted to feel attraction, because otherwise that look would tingle along his skin and make him dizzy.

"Terrible," Light tells him. "What happened?"

"You got sick." L hands him the water bottle again and Light's not thirsty anymore, but takes a few more slow sips anyway.

"I know," Light says, even though it really only connects right then and he can recall the flashes - it hurt, it burned, he felt like he was being roasted alive and L was the one with blow torch. His body is still too hot, and he drinks deeper. "How did I get sick?" he asks, as if that's something L would know. It could have been the taskforce, someone at University, maybe -

"The man you slept with?" L suggests, so casually that they might as well be drinking buddies discussing Light's love life.

"Mikami," Light tells him, after a moment, deciding that he wants L to hear the name, wants him to know it and remember and feel sick with jealousy every time he thinks of it. The idea of any of that seems wildly unlikely, but Light wants it anyway.

L nods. "Right, him."

Then Light feels himself being shoved back into the pillows as L climbs on top of him, and Light wants to shout about the indignity, the cruelty, the heathen violence - just another reason why L is a bad, bad man, a man who rips things open - but his skin is so cool and Light's is so hot, and as he shoves his clothes away, pushing closer, it feel better than anything like this ought to.

Light's breath steams and he tries to think of a decent protest, but they're all silly, make him sound weak and young and victimized, and that might be the role he plays, but that's not what he is, not truly. As L draws his chilled hands along Light's ribs, up and around his back, pulling his close, Light roles his head to the side, plays bashful, and notices Misa, asleep in a chair on the other side of the room.

He freezes. "You can't - "

"She wouldn't mind," L murmurs, and then he's kissing him very softly and very heavily and Light's body is sinking down; he thinks he must be relapsing into sickness and he wants to cough on the violent breath that stirs up in him. He feels L's cock against his thighs, not as cool as the rest of him, but nothing to Light's slow-burn body temperature. His skin slides against L, and he smells like sweat, smells like something left out in the sea, and he needs a shower, he needs a change of clothes and clean sheets and to be out and away from L to where he can think proper thoughts instead of just jerking his hips in a slow, defeated rhythm and opening his legs.

He doesn't use a condom and that maybe should bother Light - because L's been everywhere, been had by everyone, is probably more diseased than most prostitutes, but then L is careful and L is good and L wouldn't do that to him.

Except no, that's all wrong, because there is nothing L wouldn't do to him, no hurt he wouldn't revel inflicting on Light, because he is cruel, and he is close and he is getting in too to fast, and then Light's back bends a little and he pretends he isn't choking down his voice - doesn't want Misa to hear but doesn't want to admit that - body opening for L like something owned instead of something that owns.

"You love me," L tells him, rolling his hips.

Light doesn't confirm or deny, doesn't need to, just grabs at the thin bones of L's back and grits his teeth and tries to smile, like this is all a joke, like this is their joke, but it comes out like a snarl and his lips are chapped and then L's kissing the corner of them, drawing a breath down his chin, reaching in so deep and clawing out his insides, and it's not fun, and not even really pleasurable in the right ways, but Light's body quakes and when L finally bothers to put his hand on him, to jerk him off, to give him something - it feels like scraps, like the barest hint of what he deserves - he cants and winces and spills across L's fingers, feeling drained and ruined immediately after, like L has infected him with a whole other sickness.

He lies back until L finishes, strokes along his shoulder with weak hands. Misa is still asleep, so that's something, and his body aches in a way that's too good to mind. "Bastard," he murmurs, and kisses L on the jaw.

* * *

There's a raid.

Not on them - Watson's too good, and whoever's above him is good enough that Mello doesn't even know his name. But they're picking up from a certain supplier and, apparently, it's one that the cops have been closing in on for months. Watson tells him this while they're crouched under a table, warm breath whispering against Mello's ear, still tinted almost comical - just a big joke, the drugs, the police, all of it - by the smile that never quite drops out his voice, no matter the subject.

Mello breathes deep, tells himself that he's not going to die, that this isn't a big deal, that if L were under this table with him, he'd be just as bored and unconcerned as usual. That's the way to be, that's the only way to be. Mello keeps it up, even as they make a run for the back room, even as Watson's arm is grazed with a bullet and Mello has to half drag him out into the back-streets, down an alleyway and into a dumpster. They huddle there with the rats and the used needles and the week-old Indian food, until they're passed. The cops move in a neat line, one after the other, fast and professional. Mello hates them.

Mello works for justice, lives for it, even, but he hates those who can't manage it as well as him and these - these idiots, just doing what they're told, too blinded by orders to _think_ for a moment about what it is they're really after, really working for. Watson is bleeding all over Mello's new jacket and that's not justice, can't be even close.

"Come on," he mumbles, shoving the lid up after enough time has passed. The metal creaks and Mello vaguely considers vomiting. "Come on," he says, tugging Watson out after him, "we have to go, they'll - "

"Calm down, kid." His smile is less than usual, but just as clever. "Deep breaths and all that."

"I am calm!" Mello hisses, rolling off his glove and pressing it to Watson's arm, missing the actual wound a few times before he gets it right. Staunch the bleeding, staunch the bleeding, no one's going to die - it's just a flesh wound, it's just -

Watson's neat fingernails are in Mello's hair then, tipping him back to look up, thumb dragging along his temple, and Mello doesn't think anything of it then. "Calm," he repeats. "Now, we're going to go back to mine and get out my first aid kit and my hot cocoa mix, and after I'm all healed up and you're good and warm, then you can panic all you like, alright?"

Mello nods. "Alright." Watson's hand is warm on his head. There is blood on both of their skin. He nods again. "Alright." Something moves thickly in the shadows - not a cop, not anything to worry about - and Mello reminds himself to take deep breaths and all that.

* * *

Watson's flat is not what he'd expected, but then maybe he should have.

There are books everywhere. On shelves and on tables, on stacks on the floor, and covering most of the chairs. There's even a couple half balanced on a dying house-plant. The rooms themselves are small, and the floors are cold, and only half of the light switches work. Watson points him in the direction of the toilet, where Mello digs out the first-aid kit from behind mountains of loo books and brings it back.

He's done this before, if only in practice. Roger didn't like to entertain the notion of them having anything to do with gunshot wounds, but Watari had insisted, and set-up lessons for those interested on basic first-aid and, well, less basic first-aid. Mello can quote most strange medical study reports word for word, and describe the pictures in astonishing detail, too. He'd earned extra credit for that.

He patches Watson mechanically, hands still shaking. He says it's because of the cold. Watson just smiles like he doesn't believe him and nods to the thermostat. The heat goes up and Mello doesn't stop shaking. They both pretend that he does.

Mello makes cocoa for himself and tea for Watson, and listens to him talk, fairly undramatically, about his first ever gunshot wound.

"Was younger than you." Mello's eyebrows go up. "Had been in the business far longer, though. Was just a sprog when I got picked up by a nice man with a lot of money and a lot of drugs, in need of somebody small to do some small jobs for him."

"A regular Artful Dodger, huh?" Mello says. Maybe it's the books and maybe it's the shared life-threatening experience, but he's starting to feel a strange sort of affinity for Watson. He's not a role-model, certainly - Mello would sooner die than end up living this sort of life in this sort of place; not to mention the whole criminal thing - but he's easier to like than L has ever really been, and a better conversationalist besides.

"More of a Master Bates, really," Watson says, as Mello takes the kettle off of the stove. "Anyway, I was by myself more or less, and being as young as I was, when the cops found me out, they assumed I'd been caught in the crossfire and sent me to hospital, where, finding that I hadn't got any parents and hadn't for a long time, they put me into foster care. Now, the streets were a rough place, mind, but nothing compares to the hell that being passed round the tilt-a-whirl of social workers was, and as soon as I was healed enough, I fucked off out of there fast as I could. Though not before raiding the kitchen, of course."

Mello hands him his tea, shoving a stack of books to the side to make room for himself on the edge of an armchair, his own cup wrapped in between his fingers, warming his hands quickly. The heat spreads through him and his legs start to ache, adrenaline fading off to leave him wasted and dejected in its wake, but he feels strangely comfortable here, almost safe. He has to trick himself into sleep most nights, or else he'll waste away the night thinking, planning, falling into jittery, thankless stupors that he regrets in the morning - but right now, in the low orange light's of Watson's little flat, he feels as if he could drop right off with little effort.

"You're an orphan," he says, blowing softly across the top of his cocoa.

"Yeah, and what?" Watson asks, voice too retired to sound combative, but his accent makes it unkind, even if he doesn't mean it to be. He doesn't speak like the sort of person who's read all these books.

Mello shrugs. "Nothing," he says. There's a point of bonding there for them, somewhere, but Mello's got a goal to work towards and getting on isn't as important as getting the hell out of here. He shouldn't talk about his past or who he is or where he comes from, or even mention where he's going. He can't leave a mark. He doubts they'd come after someone so low down on the food chain, but better safe than sorry - and besides, he doesn't want L to know. If he - _when_ he finds him, Mello wants him to be proud, and working for criminals to achieve his ends isn't exactly going to earn him extra credit.

This is a chapter of his life that isn't going to make it into the autobiography. This is just downtime, a time-out from who he really is. Once he gets to Japan, it will all come back - the tests and the papers and the unending succession of grades by which he's measured his life thus far. He will be who he is again. He will be someone.

For now, he just drinks his cocoa and stays quiet.

Drunken laughter echoes from the streets below. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and Watson grunts at him to use a napkin. He goes over to the kitchen and pulls a few out of the bag, but doesn't use them, just traces his eyes across the spines of the books stacked haphazardly in the dish-cupboard. "Hey, do you mind if I read one of these?" he calls back into the front room.

"Read yourself silly," Watson mumbles back, standing, "but damage any of them and I'll break all your fingers." Mello freezes where he is, rapidly reconsidering, before Watson snorts and glances at him over his shoulder. "I'm taking the piss, lad. Have at it."

He nods at the shelf and Mello grabs the first book that looks vaguely interesting, too uncomfortable to deliberate much. He moves back to the front room and his overcrowded chair as Watson pulls open a very scratched-up and decrepit looking laptop with his undamaged hand.

"You can take the bedroom, if you like," he offers, without looking up. "I've work to do and kiddies like you need quite a bit of sleep, don't they?"

Mello shrugs. "I'm fine," he says, cracking open the first page, fingers tracing over the words. It doesn't even have to be a particularly good book, he doesn't care, just the sensation of reading is comforting. He's barely been scraping together enough to make rent and buy food, and books have lately become luxuries he cannot afford. Watson's got a veritable library here, though, and this isn't the sort of place he'd particularly mind staying.

Maybe he can mention how he's an orphan, appeal to whatever's sympathetic in Watson, and swing himself an invite. Rent will be one less expense that Mello has to subtract from his Tokyo fund, and Watson's not half bad, anyway. Mello's not one for extraneous company, but Watson's a little like Matt in the way that he takes up such a small amount of space, half the time you can forget he's there.

Mello barely makes it past the first chapter before his eyes drop closed, and he doesn't even force them back open. For the first time in months, it feels okay to sleep.

* * *

If he dreams, it's all a scuffle, too twisted up with memories and thoughts and the echoing shouts from the streets below to come to anything coherent, and he wakes not thinking of the rolling tide in his head so much as the weight spread across him. He tries to sit up, neck aching from the position he'd slept in, and can't.

Then he feels it.

"What - "

A hand comes up, knocking softly into his chin, and his belt buckle clinks and he can feel his trousers pooled around his thighs - and he doesn't need to ask, not really. He knows what.

He blinks up at Watson and he can't think quite straight for a moment, thoughts veering off in different directions and is this really happening? This can't really be happening. This kind of thing doesn't happen. He'd know. He'd get fair warning. It wouldn't happen to him. He tries to speak and a palm comes up to cover his mouth, the rest of the body pressing his firmly down, keeping him pinned, and what is this? _What is this?_

"That's a boy." The words warm his neck all at once and for a moment he can't even tell where they're coming from, even thought Watson is right on him, is _right_ _there_, it feels like they're coming out of a vacuum. A person wouldn't do this to him, it's just circumstance, Watson wouldn't - "Shhh."

Mello watches his mouth move and then all at once he's kicking out, bucking wildly and shoving his elbows up. _Go for the eyes_, L had told him once. _You're small. Work to your advantages. Speed over strength, and always go for the eyes_. He doesn't know how he recalls the memory so clearly now when he hasn't thought particularly of it in years. It's one of the few things L's ever said directly to him that Watari didn't put him up to, and, as a child, Mello had treasured it for that reason alone. Then he'd gotten older and had become too cool to treasure anything.

He goes for the eyes. His thumbs jam up, one arm snaking out from under Watson, but he misses by less than an inch, colliding with the bridge of his nose instead, and without enough force to do any proper damage. Then his wrist is grabbed, bent awkwardly into the same hand as his other, and he feels so small. Had Watson always been so much larger? So much stronger? Had Watson always…

_"He put his cock in you yet, or are you saving that honor for me, princess?"_

Oh god. Ohgodohgodohgod. "Get off," he shouts, and his voice sounds panicked, too panicked. He scrambles, feet kicking, body jerking wildly and then there's a hand in his hair and his head's being jerked back and he can't, he can't -

"Calm down, lad," Watson says softly, casually. He doesn't even sound winded. Mello can hear the usual smile tinging the edges of his voice. "You're going to hurt yourself."

As if this is him, his fault. As if his trousers aren't slipping down to dig into the backs of his knees, and, oh god, he's fucking - he can see - there's a hand on his thigh, and what the fuck is that? What - he's never even - why is he _doing this_?

_"Best be on your guard, or he might slip you it without you even knowing."_

Oh fuck, oh Christ, oh Jesus fucking - no, no, no - the hand on his thigh keeps moving, upward, upward, and he's a good Catholic boy, his mother always used to say so, and he never ought to take the name of the lord in vain, but _Jesus fucking Christ_. "Get the fuck off me," he tries to shout again, but it all whooshes out on a breath and doesn't sound half as strong as he intends it to, "get off, get off, don't - you fucking bastard, don't you dare!" The hand and his hair jerks him hard and he feels the sob catch in his throat and he doesn't care, he doesn't care. "Get off! I'll fucking kill you! I swear I'll fucking - "

The palm across his face hits hard and he can feel the mark fading into his skin, but he doesn't care, he doesn't care. That fucking bastard.

_"I think I'd fucking notice."_

Of course he fucking would. Of course.

Watson's shifting his position - a better angle, probably; of course, of course - and Mello wonders if he'll be killed if he fights and wonders if he'll be killed anyway, but none of that really factors into his motivation for jamming his knee up into Watson's crotch, hitting at a decent enough angle for him to grit his teeth and choke down a howl, but he wonders anyway. There's only a split second for him to move and maybe he should kick Watson again, really give it to him, but he just scrambles off the chair, moving as fast as he can to get up, just get away, get away.

He knocks into a stack of books and his trousers are still around his knees and when he's tackled to the floor and pressed down face first, he's only vaguely shocked, but more dully, shakily resigned, even as he struggles and yells, biting his tongue with the force of his words, scorching his throat with the intensity of his voice. He screams, he's screaming and his body is moving too fast, like it's been switched into a different gear, but it all feels like it's going far too slow. He feels like he's underwater, like this a dream and he's watching from a bird's-eye-view above, an uninvested observer.

He is a movie that's been played over and over, one he's seen so many times that he can map all the movements and speak all the words in time, knows every beat before it happens.

This is a thing that happens all the time. He's pressed face-first to the floor, but it's not unusual. It's in the papers often enough, and L has solved these sorts of cases if they're widespread enough or if a few bodies pile up with them. But this - just this, this moment where he is shaking like a rabid animal and Watson is pinning his wrists to his back, one hand trailing along his thigh, whispering, "Calm, lad, calm. You're not such a bad kid, are you? No, no," in such an unremarkable, gentle, smiling voice - this moment is nothing.

In the grand scheme - and that's what it's all about, that's what L deals in and Mello is aiming to deal in - in the grand scheme, this might as well not be happening.

Then Watson's pressing awkwardly against his spine and he can feel him, can feel _it_, and he feels woozy and distant and like he wants to pause the film and this is not happening, _this is not happening_, and he wishes Matt were here in a far, far removed part of his mind, not that he'd want Matt to see him like this, but it's just such a big, strange, horrible event and it feels like something Matt should be here for.

And then -

_And then -_

The floorboards creak but barely anything else moves and then the warm, solid, gutting weight of Watson's body is gone and there's an aborted breath and something like a yell and Mello's falling forward onto his elbows, trying weakly to push himself up, when he feels a splash of something heavy, warm and wet across his back. _Semen_, is his first thought, in a very detached, clinical way, but it's not - it doesn't smell right.

He rolls over slowly, movement suddenly stilted and he knows he'd been afraid of this whole situation, been panicked and frantic, but the whole room feels different now, atmosphere shifted sharply to the other end of the scale. It's cold and dark and frightening, like a horror movie has walked in on him. Mello pushes himself up, turning around to try to see where Watson's gone, but a very silent part of his mind already almost _knows_. The shadow at his back, like a guardian angel.

He blinks up, eyes adjusting properly to the low light, and stares at L and L stares back - made of familiar shapes; white and blue and black, thin arms and skeptical eyes and - and for a moment, Mello almost believes it.

Then L's stance shifts and he's not L anymore, not anyone Mello's ever seen before, maybe not even a human being. Maybe not even real. Maybe none of this is. He's standing there, bent awkwardly over Watson's limp, heavy body that's collapsed half on the chair. There's something thick and dark dripping from his mouth, down his chin and onto the flimsy material of his shirt. The man who is not L has a knife and he has a grin and he's really nothing at all like L, actually, switching to a stranger in one quick, stilted second.

Mello tries to sit up and realizes that his trousers are still undone, leaving him bared and weak.

The man smiles and tilts his head at him, and drops Watson's body to the floor, moving over to crouch down next to Mello and do up his zipper and button with sharp, quick fingers and a jag of a smile. Mello can't move. This isn't happening, this probably isn't happening - but if it is, if it _is_ -

"Little boys like you should be in bed at this hour," Beyond Birthday says to him, in a voice that sounds like gravel under a tire and tinkling, silvery things.

Mello blinks, stutters for a moment, then - for lack of anything else to do - punches him squarely in the jaw. Then he starts screaming again.

* * *

Light is cool with sweat and he smells like a hospital. Like flesh.

Misa is still asleep in her chair and one of her pajama legs is rolled up at the end and he can see a thin strip of shadowed skin, bare and smooth in the dark. He doesn't know what time it is or how many days it's been since he'd come here. Since he fucked Teru Mikami and then came to L and lay down on the ground before him. One of them was always a sacrifice but he can't tell which it is anymore. Maybe both. Maybe they're each a respective offering to a respective god. Maybe Light isn't the only thing in the world; maybe he's half of something.

No - no. That's ridiculous. That's something you'd write in a mass-produced greeting card. That's something he'd say out loud but not ever really think. His thoughts aren't his own anymore. Ever since L tripped in on pallid feet he's been tangling up in Light's wires. He's so tangled up now that if Light wanted to be rid of him, he'd have to cut him out. Like a parasite buried under the skin. He'd have to _cut_.

His fever's broken and he feels weak from it, but in a sated, happy way, like after a day of vigorous exercise. L presses a room-temperature hand-towel to his head that might have been cool and soothing at some point. His wrist is bent in on itself and he moves lazily, like Light is a fixture he has to wipe down but doesn't particularly care about the cleanliness of.

It smells like a hospital.

"You really shouldn't have sex with people who are barely conscious," Light says to him, sinking down into the pillows even though they're heavy with the feel of his sickness.

He's too tired to change the sheets. He doesn't even have a change of sheets. He'd only bought the one set. His mother had always done this sort of thing for him before and it had never occurred to him to buy two sets of sheets, but that's what people do, right? You put on one set while you wash the other, or else you'll have no sheets for a few hours. It's so simple, but mystifying in a vague way that must have something to do with his sickness. L is still pressing the towel to his forehead, his cheek, but Light wishes he'd just use his bare hands instead.

He doesn't respond, is barely looking at Light when he shifts to drop a file on his chest. It lands off-center, hits so softly it could be nothing. "Hiroshi Ono"

Light's mind rolls around the word, waiting for the click, but it doesn't come. He opens his eyes. He doesn't know who L's talking about. He looks down at the file on his chest, then to the side at L, who's studiously unwrapping a selection of small, brightly colored lollipops, back bent awkwardly as he lines them up over his pages of notes. L watches the line of his jaw. It's jerking almost imperceptibly, and Light realizes he's counting quietly under his breath.

He looks down at the file again, sitting up to crack it open. Several unflattering photographs of a middle-aged man with a wide chin and small, bright eyes falls out, along with some printed stats and a few crumpled, coffee-stained notes. L's thin, scrawling penmanship loops across the page. He writes in English and Light wishes he wouldn't, but he drags the pads of his fingers across it anyway, feeling the indentations of the pen.

Then he reads the words. _Hiroshi Ono. _Early fifties, unmarried, and unremarkable in every way. Just a regular salaryman.

Light glances back up at L. "He did it?" It's not even been a week and L hasn't left this room; he's good, but he's not that good. "You can't know - "

"He's my number one suspect," L says, lining up his lollipops so that they're all facing the same way. Then he picks one up and drops it in his mouth, teeth knocking against the sticky surface with a series of small clicks. "It's just a hunch, so I could be wrong, but 9 times out of 10 my hunches are correct." He slides his eyes over to Light and smirks without twitching a muscle. "Case in point."

Sitting up further seems like a lot of work, so Light just slumps down into the pillows, resting his forehead haphazardly against L's shoulder and smiling with his voice. "Should I bring him here so you can fuck the truth out of him?" he asks, harsher than he means to, but then he feels harsh, rather suddenly.

L doesn't care about justice, doesn't care about truly saving anyone. He just wants to win. He's just doing a job.

"Just send an anonymous tip to the authorities, if you could," he tells Light, nudging him slightly to the side, like the physical closeness is causing some sort of intellectual strain. He's lining up his lollipops again, setting the sticks straight, and he keeps lining them no matter how straight they get. "I want to see what they'll turn up."

Light lifts himself from L's arm, wants to frown but doesn't quite. There was a moment of closeness there, thin and strung out and the reason for all of this, really - L brings moments like that with him everywhere, brings them out when you least expect them - but it's gone now.

"Not your type?" Light says.

L crunches his lollipop. "I'm sure I don't have a type."

Light draws patterns just above his skin, almost touching his arm but not quite. "I'm pretty sure your type is me."

L looks at him then and Light makes sure to sit up more fully, putting his body weight on one hand so that he's not thrown off-balance when he leans forward and kisses L on the edge of his jaw. L bears it like something he has to suffer rather than something he revels in, and it's strange how he can switch so easily - pressing Light into the pillows one moment and barely taking notice of him the next.

He huffs, blowing his hair out of his eyes with a stoic impatience. "I don't even like you very much," he tells Light, but his voice lightens and he sounds almost kind again, a stilted condescension.

Light watches the bones at the top of his spine shift under the skin as he leans forward, and realizes, all in one moment, that L is humoring him. That L is always humoring him. He wants to snap his neck and he wants to bury him underground, with the dirt and the worms, and he wants to watch him burn up in a whirl of flames and charred flesh and suffering. Light is not a thing to be humored; L is not a thing high up enough to even be able to lower himself, but he glances at Light out of the corner of his eyes like that's just what he's doing.

_L Lawliet._

_L Lawliet L Lawliet L Lawliet L Lawliet._

He wishes he'd never learned the name. It's so tempting and his fingers itch for a pen. The name has made L's death too easy and that is something that is not allowed to be easy. That is something that everyone will suffer with, if it happens. _When_ it happens. If, when - he doesn't know, can't decide. His plans keep breaking down, being reestablished, then breaking down again. L keeps breaking things.

Light doesn't pull L around by the hair, even though he could, just speaks to his sharp shoulder.

"I killed Aiber and Wedy," he says. The words are a part of Light, but suddenly they're outside of him and he doesn't know quite how they got there. They sound quieter and less important than they maybe should, but L still freezes, still and solid, where he sits. "I couldn't get Watari's name, but their's were easy enough," Light continues casually, "right there in the system. The system I would never be able to hack, remember?"

He turns his most charming smile on L, and even though he's still drained in some ways, there's a jagged lightening to the world in that moment, and he realizes that things aren't quite so bleak as L knows how to make him think. The world is open and the world is large and, most importantly, the world is his.

Light is justice, and L is Light's and everything will be alright, perhaps.

L still hasn't moved. He doesn't turn, doesn't look at Light.

"You're lying," he says after a moment, like it's a conclusion that he's settled on after much studious consideration, rather than the panicked, desperate attempt that it is. Light smirks to himself and maybe L can hear it because he turns his head very slowly in the next second.

"No," Light says, lips quirking. It's such a beautiful moment. He wishes he had a camera. Misa is stirring, making soft sounds that drift slow across the room. L is still so, so still. He looks at Light with very calm eyes and says, for a second time, "You're lying."

Light just shakes his.

Then it hurts.

His breath grunts out of him and the pressure sparks up, curling under his ribs, jamming into the flesh and _twisting_ with a rabid vehemency that has him doubling over, arms wrapping around his abdomen to shield it, desperately grappling to get L's hand _off_, off, away - just get it off - just -

It _hurts_.

His eyes are watering and he doesn't know what's happening, only that something slams into his shoulder and there are suddenly feet by his head and a flat surface against his back.

"Light! Light, oh my god!" Misa's voice is too sudden and loud and it echoes hollowly in his head. "Ryuzaki, _stop!"_

Light tries to sit up but his head is still fuzzy and his limbs ache with a sort of nausea and it feels like there's something wriggling around under his skin, something with _teeth_. L says something and Light hears the words but they don't go together properly, he can't make sense of them - they're just two syllables floating around inside of his head as Misa screeches impotently.

"Now," and, "Rem," L says, and Light tries and he tries - and then suddenly L moves off the bed, steps over Light's body and goes further than he should be able to and it all rather clicks into place. _"Now Rem,"_ L had said and Rem's done something - traitor, traitor, of course she's a traitor - and L is free, chain gone from his wrists and how is that possible? How is this happening?

L doesn't turn, doesn't even say goodbye, and as Light pushes himself up and tries to stop the room spinning, he can see Misa thrashing around in Rem's hold, yelling so wild, too _loud_ - "Why are you doing this? Rem, how could you do this to me? You said, you said…" - and L is unlocking the door, is turning the key, and how is that fair, how is that a part of the plan? How is this going to help anything?

L is walking away, L is getting away, and Light barely feels like he can stand, let alone chase him, and he's already disappearing down the hall, he's already gone. Misa's still shouting and maybe crying and Rem just holds her, stoic and unconcerned, as if she's not even here at all, and that's when Light sees it. It's sticking out of Misa's purse, one of several sheets. Some of them are written on, some aren't. Light reaches out, without really deciding to, and picks one up.

He grabs one of her mass of gel pens and the letters are so easy, so simple. He feels like he's written it a hundred times before, like it's traced into his skin somewhere. He can't even see L anymore, he could be out the door at this point. His fingers ache with it, but this was always an experiment that could be ended at any moment and a big part of him always more or less knew it would end up something like this. There is a scale, somewhere, and it's wavered for a while, but things eventually always come down in favor of the world.

His brave new world.

_"Is it beautiful yet?"_

His arm aches to move, but he quickly scrawls _L Lawliet_ across a loose page of the Death Note anyway.

* * *

**tbc.**

* * *

**end notes:** "wow Jaye (that's my name, jsyk), I'm really glad you decided to write your fic this way instead of writing it in a way that makes actual sense and isn't dumb as hell," said no one ever. writing is hard, you guys. It's like, I want to make a thing go a certain way and then if goes in the exact opposite way and I just stand there shrugging. that's literally my writing process.

okay, couple of things - 1) this is not the last chapter. not even close. 2) don't break out the pitch forks and torches just yet, kay? 3) I think think the whole 'you can always trust someone who likes books' trope is way too overdone in fiction. well-read people can be rapists, too. 4) stay tuned for the adventures of Mihael Keehl and Beyond Birthday! wee!

if you review I will giggle and squeal and kiss your face. thank you all for reading, regardless.


	13. heart attack

**warnings:** a bit of violence and gore. and hints of B/Mello, which may make some people (everybody) uncomfortable. and lateness. warning! this chapter is late.

**notes:** Hello, it's me again! I know, I know, I'll fuck off in just a second but some things first: apologies that this chapter took about three weeks (?) to get out, which is about twice as long as it would ideally take. I'm lazy and constantly struggling with this bad boy and nervous that you'll all hate me after this chapter, anyhow, but here it is. Some things are explained but not very well. and look, I'm typing my notes with proper capitalization this time around. Who knew I could do that?

So, the quote at the top of this chapter is not from a book this time, but a webcomic. Or quasi-webcomic. It's called _a softer world_ and if you haven't already heard of it, you ought to go look it up. When I started writing this I had just finished up _Moby Dick_, which is a goldmine of brilliant quotes that really resonated with this story, but after I used up all the really good ones, I was mostly just scrambling to find applicable literary quotes out of some sense of propriety? Which is kind of silly when it comes to, you know, gay porn, so I'm just throwing my hands up and going with whatever quote is pulling my heartstrings, and this story along, at the moment, be it literature or a line of poetry or even a lyric. Yeah, I may do the lyrics thing. I figure if you've made it this far into this mess, you're not going to be thrown out by that, of all things. ANYWAY, onto business.

Thank you, as always, to the utterly shocking amount of people who reviewed last chapter. I have no idea what I did to deserve that much sweetness and praise (and only one or two death threats!) but I'm utterly grateful for all of it. It made me so happy! Oh, and this chapter is dedicated to **diabolicaltheory1** for sending me the kindest PM and encouraging me to actually get this finished and posted. ecstatic love for you!

* * *

**chapter thirteen - heart attack.**

* * *

_"'Make love, not war!' is an unrealistic demand. What we need is a hybrid."_

- a softer world, 978

* * *

"You look better in black," L tells him, hands running along his abdomen, straightening the creases out of his shirt. Light can feel the joints in his fingers, can feel the stutter and jerk of his movements, strange and imprecise but almost pretty, once you get used to them.

"God doesn't wear black."

He straightens his tie and it's red, red like his high school tie had been. He looks at his arms, at the slacks that L's pawing at, adjusting the way they rest on his hips. Khaki. He's wearing his high school uniform. He looks back at L, who's grown dimmer somehow, like he's less there than he had been. Light hadn't known him before college, had only seen the letter on the screen, had only known the big, daunting presence of the great detective L. There hadn't been anything more than that.

Lind L. Taylor. He'd tried to kill him back then, too.

_Too?_

Light is wearing his school uniform and suddenly L is gone and Light is on the floor and the world shudders, the aftereffects of some sort of natural disaster shaking the foundations. It's been forty seconds. It must have been forty seconds.

He hears a soft thud from several rooms over. And then -

And then. What? What now?

Misa's stopped yelling but Light can hear her sniffling. She's afraid. Light takes her fear and makes it his own because he has nothing of his own at the moment. It's very painless. He's just killed L and it's all very painless. There's something wrong with that, or maybe something very right about it. Maybe if he had just done this from the start…

"Quiet." Rem's voice is very loud in the room.

The space heater has been turned off and Light's thankful for that. He's burning up now. He's skin is prickling, chafed by the air. His body feels wrong, like it's not his body, like he shouldn't have one. The floor against his chest is rough, a solid presence, but he can't tell if he's touching it or not. The world tingles at the end of his fingerprints and L is dead in the next room and nothing. Nothing else.

Maybe he should close the door and lock it.

"Quiet, Misa," Rem says, but Misa sniffs and Misa steps on heavy feet and Misa is not quiet. Misa always takes orders, but she never does what she's told. She is not a girl who has ever done what she's told. The ground shivers as she walks to him. Light is still on the ground. He feels too faded to be feverish. He's not here. He's not here.

L is dead in the next room. Very quietly.

"Light, what's going on?" Misa asks, kneeling down beside him. He feels the heat radiate from her hand as she holds it above his head, too afraid to touch. _Go ahead,_ he thinks. _You have permission, just this once. Go ahead._ "Shouldn't we - " she starts, "should I go after him?"

She's talking about L. Why is she talking about L? How could _she_ of all people think that she could talk about L?

She doesn't touch him. Light feels like a statue that's been knocked over. She doesn't touch him and suddenly he doesn't want her to, can think of nothing more unsettling than the thought of her hands on him. Her tiny fingers. Her black painted nails.

_"God doesn't wear black."_

Oh, that's a good one. That's just such a good joke. The punchline is somewhere around here. The punchline is dead in the next room.

He stands up on shaky legs and when Misa goes to help him he shrugs her off with a vehemence he can't quite control. He feels dizzy and he doesn't know when he'd last eaten and he wants to be wild and feverish again, even though his sickness is gone. He can feel it gone - just drained out him. L had pressed a towel to his face and Light still wants to kiss him. There's a piece of paper on the floor, but he doesn't look at it. Misa keeps asking questions - "Do you want me to send Rem after him? Do you want me to get you some water? Do you want - "

The needle could stand to be cleaner, but she'll survive it just fine. He stabs it into the side of her neck in one quick movement and her eyes go wide but not surprised. He's been nothing but a betrayal to her from the start. She'd be better served finding some nice man with an intellect roughly equivalent with Touta Matsuda's, riding off into the sunset in a carriage of dreams and all that rot. A June wedding. She could wear flowers in her hair. She falls to the ground with a thud - there was a thud from the other room, he can still feel it shaking the floor - and Rem could probably have caught her but she doesn't.

She watches Light with her one jagged eye and Light knows, should have known all along. Always the traitor.

"You gave him the keys," he says, unsteadily. He needs to sit down, he needs to be still. Misa's position can't be comfortable, but he doesn't care. He grapples himself into her vacated seat - the chair he'd had her buy cheap from a going-out-of-business sale. Two of the legs are loose and it groans unsettlingly with any weight that's placed on it.

He feels like he might decay on the spot, but also like his skin is clean for the first time in a long time. He can think straight. He can see the world as it is.

"Yes," Rem says.

Ugly. There is a deep brown discoloration at the corners of the baseboards, where the metal sticks out unattractively. There is dirt under his fingernails. Everything rusts and rots and dies eventually, everything in the world is breakable and there is no use trying to keep it whole. _There is a mirror and there is a vase and it - it shatters_.

No. No.

There is dirt under his fingernails and he latches onto it, suddenly convinced that the only proper way to get anything in order, to make the world right again, is to get it out. Clean. Everything has to be clean. L is always dirty, never showers as often as he should.

Is. Present tense.

"Why?" he says, stopping for a moment. "Why would you do that?" He looks up at Rem and she looks down at him and it's a look that's wrong on her. Pity. She pities him. He hates that and his stomach twists and she's nothing, really - Misa will never love her, could never; Misa loves him. L loves him. Everyone loves him. He's God. "Why?" he asks again, because she's not responding and he can't tell how long it's been, moment to moment nothing more than a frazzled buzz of nerves and the tick of his watch. What times is it? Misa's still on the floor.

"It was a test," Rem says.

What? What does that mean? He hears the words but they don't fit together properly. They give you tests in school, people test things to make sure they're working properly - aptitude, functionality, the state of being _testy_ - but L left and L ran and how does any of this make any sense? This feels like a fantasy, like something he'd think about while palming himself through his slacks, imagining L to be -

L is in the other room.

"He wanted to see what you would do." Rem is moving closer to him and Light can't decide whether to be disgusted or grateful. She is a god, in her way. "How you would react." Rem looks at him and then to the paper on the floor, _L Lawliet_ looped across it in uneven penmanship. "I guess he saw."

Light stands. He stands and he's standing there when Ryuk fades in through the wall behind him, grin leaking something perverse onto the scene - as if it wasn't already there. Misa's on the ground and Rem is a beastly, hulking presence and Light is standing. Light is standing.

Ryuk laughs and he keeps laughing. He can feel the tiny pulse of his watch as the seconds tick by. More than forty. Far, far more than forty.

Mikami, he thinks. Mikami in a white t-shirt and jeans. It could be so easy. Just a little twist, a little chafing bend of reality and there really wouldn't be a difference. There really wasn't anything so irreplaceable in L that can't be cultivated in someone else. Humans are formed by experience, by circumstance. If the soul is there, it is simply an un-carved block cast into the world to be made human only by suffering. The tides roll in and the water wears at it and eventually, maybe, there's a person there at the end of it all.

Light is hands and strong fingers and a neck and eyes that practice smiling into the mirror and smooth silky hair and a voice, a voice that people listen to when it speaks. He is a name. Moon Night God. Light. Yagami. They're just parts of a whole. He is calves and he is khaki and he is that tiny, screaming, rabid thing that thrashes in his chest, that says _this is all wrong_. There is paradise somewhere beyond these walls, but you have burned it and you are burning. The torch is lit. Little boys have their livers carved out. Violence takes you and it paints the walls. Time moves too slow or else too fast and everybody goes to work and everybody collects their paycheck and everybody pretends to fall in love because the enormity of their singularity is terrifying. Light is eyebrows and lips and feet that blister in his running shoes on the tennis court.

Light is mostly names, and mostly other people's names. Light is Kaito Hidaka and Korou Otohara and Naomi Misora and more and more and more and the world over. The world shivers in his hands. Light is the Death Note. Light is death and Light is God and Light is the _killer_ that they all call him.

And Light is L, in some ways. Light is sometimes more L than Light is himself. Sometimes there is no such thing as Light Yagami, only Kira and L. Only larger than life beautiful things.

Ryuk is still laughing. Light is still standing. L is still in the other room and Light steps one foot in front of the other, because he'll have to do something with the body.

His bare feet stick to the cheap linoleum as he moves into the hallway. The walk feels shorter than usual, maybe because most of the time he's going the other way, antsy to get to L, L tied up and packaged tight for him. Like a pet, a prized hound. L did warn him. This was always a terrible idea and things were always going to end with somebody's blood soaking somebody else's hands. He should breathe, he should get over it.

He moves to the hall, and to the small room connecting it.

It's really not that big a deal, if he puts it into proper perspective. People die all the time, every day. Death is just as human as anything people do, if not more so, and the wheel needs to keep turning and the stars need to -

L is in the next room. L is curled up on the bare grey carpeting, thumb to his mouth, head tipped limply to the side. "Took you long enough," he says, shifting into a more watchful position. "I thought you'd died in there or something. Misa has stopped shrieking anyway, so I suppose I should just count my blessings."

Light doesn't -

Light doesn't.

L is in this room. L is looking at him like he's gone crazy.

Light can't - there is too much in him, swirling around, making tornadoes, making him sick, and all that really registers at this point, above all the scattered, contradicting questions and thoughts and demands and pleas and prayers and wild hope, is -

_Oh thank fuck._

* * *

"Ow," Beyond Birthday says.

Because Mello once heard a story. Mello sat awkwardly on a sofa with L curled up across from him, picking at pastries and mumbling somewhat uninterestedly about an FBI agent named Naomi Misora and a girl with her eyes removed and lots of little Japanese dolls. Lots of symbolism. Lots of psychosis. Mello had taken notes. L had rolled his eyes.

"You should be able to retain information of this level of detail without any aide. Real life doesn't always allow you a pen and paper," he'd said, and then dropped a fruit tart straight into his mouth.

Mello remembers the scratchy feel of the pillows at his side, the rock that had been stuck in his shoe that he'd been too nervous to shake out. "Fuck off," he should have said. Should have had some goddamn backbone. Matt had said so - or, Mello had said so, and Matt hadn't contested it. Probably hadn't even been conscious at the time - three in the morning and the two of them spread out on the bedroom floor with chocolate and cigarettes and all the necessities. "Fuck off," he should have said.

He'd just apologized and set his notepad aside. L had snorted, as if he'd expected as much and looked down on him for it - which hadn't been fair, hadn't been fair at all. He'd said so after. "L is never fair," Roger had told him, with an unassuming glance and a tap of his pen.

But Mello had heard a story. He hadn't taken many notes and he doesn't remember most of the names or the dates exactly - that's why he's not number one, maybe; Near has a photographic memory and how is that fair, how is any of this fair? - but he remembers one name.

Beyond Birthday.

He'd heard it before. Wammy's loves a good ghost story and Beyond Birthday is the best ghost, even better than A. Grady, the groundskeeper's son, had half the intelligence of a Wammy's House two-year-old, but he'd still told a damned good scary story. True stories, he'd said. Beyond Birthday was the kind of boy who tore wings off of butterflies, the kind of boy who could stay very still and quiet for hours and hours in order to get the butterflies to land in his hand. A boy who no one blinked twice at when he came home with blood in his mouth and dirt on his hands, always climbing trees and killing things and laughing quietly. Always following L around like a rabid animal who'd chosen himself an owner.

Beyond Birthday is a legend. Beyond Birthday is a murderer. Beyond Birthday is in prison.

"Ow," Beyond Birthday says. Mello had hit him hard, but not hard enough, and it's barely a glancing wound. Beyond Birthday shrugs it off. Beyond Birthday knees Mello in the stomach and then shoves him over, and Mello watches the ground twirl in unquiet patterns around his head.

"That didn't really hurt," Beyond Birthday continues, tapping his cheek as he leans over Mello, sharp-tooth leer splitting his face, "but it's the principle of the thing, isn't it? You can't just go around hitting people, especially people who've just preserved your chastity for you. Or did you want him in you? It's okay. They tell you wrong things, but it's okay to want to be raped. It's okay to want to die. It's okay to want your fingers ripped off one by one."

Mello can't breath. It's like before. It's like Watson all over again, except Watson's slumped against the leg of a side-table, a stack of books collapsed across him. Some are split open and the pages shift and bristle in the breeze from the open window. The window is open. Beyond Birthday came in the window and Beyond Birthday killed Watson and how did that happen? How does this make any sense? Beyond Birthday is a story he'd heard once, twice, a few times, but Mello has lived a whole life without Beyond Birthday coming in windows, so why has he started doing it now? Why is he balanced on top of Mello, hips straddling the middle of his chest, wide, wild eyes staring back down at him.

And sharp, sharp teeth.

"Get off me," he says, because those teeth have been glinting in the edge of his vision and those teeth have been some sort of spectral ghost following him around, and _no_, that can't be it. "Get off me!" he yells, and how long has it been? How long has Beyond Birthday been tailing him? Weeks or more. He's supposed to be a detective. He's supposed to be someone who doesn't get pinned to the floor, knocked around like some kind of child.

"Do you know who I am?" Beyond Birthday asks him.

"Yes." He doesn't look much like L, Mello thinks, staring up at him. His jaw is sharp and his eyes are smiling and his tongue keeps making fleshy, slick sounds in his mouth. "Yes," Mello repeats, because he's not sure that he said it in the first place.

Beyond Birthday shifts his weight slightly, fingers coming up to claw lightly at Mello's temple, like he wants to dig through the skin. It's only after a moment that Mello realizes that Beyond Birthday is _stroking his face_. He bucks his hips trying to shake him off, trying to yank his wrists out of Beyond's grasp, but it's not working, he's stuck, he's stuck, and he's going to kill this bastard. He's going to fucking kill him.

"Do you know what I am?" Beyond Birthday asks.

"A murderer," Mello barks, then tries to spit in his face, but Beyond's too high up and he just grins as the spittle lands on Mello's cheek. He thrashes again, desperate, unclean - he feels unclean.

Beyond bites his bottom lip, twisting it up between his teeth. "Well, that - yes. I guess I'm a lot of things. Crazy, you know, being one of them. Mad." He sits up, drawing white lines on Mello's face with his fingernails, then leaning down to kiss him on the nose. Mello almost manages to land some teeth marks on his chin. "They gave me tests and I answered all of the questions right and they gave me an A for arse-backwards mad. You know who else took the tests? You know who always gets straight A's?"

Mello's trying not to listen, looking around wildly for a way out, and he can't - there's no one else. Watson is dead and there's no one else. He'll have to make it alone, he'll have to do this by himself, he'll have to, he'll have -

"Mihael," Beyond snaps, voice silky and ragged at once, "eyes up here. I'll give you a hint, it starts with an L."

He doesn't notice at first, but it seeps in as the words register, and then it sort of clicks and Mello's really going to vomit now. He hasn't had anything but that cocoa all day - what day is it? - but he's going to vomit. This is not happening, except for the part where this is obviously happening, and _how is this happening?_

There is water on his face and it takes a moment for him to realize that he's crying and he wants to take it back, undo, undo, because he's strong, he's a fucking detective and this is not how it's supposed to happen at all. It's pathetic, but he wants his warm bed back, wants Wammy's and Roger's overtaxed drone and Matt's hair tickling his hands and sharp cigarette smoke and off-white walls with dirt in the cracks, oak paneling, a church down the road from the main building where Mello used to break in and pray when he was very, very young, when he didn't care that the other kids laughed at his rosary. He still prays these days, but mostly just to spite them. The church down the road is too far a walk and no one listens just as well from his bedroom as no one had listened there.

_God, God, are you there? Hello, please pick-up. It's me, Mihael_ - just like Beyond said; Beyond knows his name; and how how how? - _and I could use some fucking help right about fucking now and fuck, fuck fuck fuck._ That's not how you pray. He always does it wrong. Not all wrong, but wrong enough to be second best, to be the one on the linoleum floor with a psychopath in his lap and the corner of a hardcover copy of _The Brothers Karamozav_ digging into his shoulder.

There are tears on his face and Beyond Birthday leans down and licks at them and the whole cycle starts over again, Mello screaming and kicking and his throat hurts and his body hurts and how long will he be down on this floor? Until Watson's body starts to decompose? Until the neighbors come to check - as if the neighbors would come to check. This is a lonely city. It's all lonely cities. There is ghost story on his lap licking his face and he ran away from home, or close enough to home, because he'd wanted to catch the glory by the hair. He'd wanted to be somebody's hero and he'd wanted just one good pat on the back and a, _"Well done, kid."_

But that's all fucked now, isn't it? Or maybe it's been fucked from the beginning. He's always known - L - L

"L's dead," he says to Beyond Birthday, the words lodging thick in his throat and the sobs wrack his body and it's almost a relief to say the words, to get them out. To speak, to speak to somebody.

"No." There's a hand in Mello's hair and suddenly he'd being yanked up and thrown down again and the playful madness in Beyond's eyes has been replaced with something seething and violent that tosses Mello around like a rag-doll. "Is that what they told you?" he spits, not waiting for an answer. "No. I would know, okay. I would _know_. You know with identical twins, there's all this research into telekinetic connection. Like they're one person. Like they can feel the other one there, like a second layer of skin. It's like that." He glares at Mello, like he's daring him not to believe it. "I'd know, okay?"

"Fuck you," Mello says, too drained of energy to yell properly, but he's angry and he's _annoyed_ on top of it all, because Beyond Birthday is speaking to him and Beyond Birthday is out of his mind and what did he do to earn this, really? There's a madman in his lap and how did he get there, how did any of this get the way it is now? "You psycho fucking fuck," he says, calmly, like he's addressing Beyond by any old nickname. "Don't you understand? You're nothing to L. Nothing. He doesn't care about you. He probably doesn't even remember you exist."

Mello thinks Beyond's going to hit him, but he just slaps a limp hand through the air, suddenly outrageously camp, and lets out a wheezy giggle.

"Oh, deflection!" he squeals. "Father-figure issues! You are exciting, even without the jailbait rape-attempt saga. It's the trousers, I think." He slides one hand down Mello's waist, trailing his fingers across the leather on his hips, and Mello nearly sprains his wrist trying to get him off again. "They're very tempting. But L - L, L, L. L's a whole other thing, you know."

He shifts a little and Mello can feel the warmth of his thighs through his jeans, and what the fuck is that?

His voice is quiet and startlingly lucid for a moment as he blinks at something behind Mello's head and says, "There's the world and there's lights and stone and gravel and water and things, and that's all very well, but then there's L." His eyes snap back to Mello and then he's grinning again. "You ever been in love with a thing, Mihael?"

There it is again. No one's used that word around him since he was seven and Mr. Wammy came to visit him at the latest in a long run of foster homes. He used to whisper it to himself sometimes, when he was a kid, so that he wouldn't forget. But then he got older and forgetting didn't really seem like a big deal anymore.

"How do you know my name?" he asks, voice softer than he wants it to be.

B's teeth dig into his lip, the edges of his mouth quirking. "It's right there." He taps his finger at Mello's forehead, stopping right above so that it doesn't make contact, then shakes his head. "I'll tell you all about it later, just answer the question."

"Fuck you."

Beyond takes his wrists in one hand, flattening them to the floor.

"I'll take that as a _I don't know, I've got all these teenage hormones, and the nice man with the sweet breath wanted to hurt me and I wanted him to hurt me._ That's what it is, isn't it? There are always nice men with sweet breath and grabby hands."

He's pulling something metal out of his pocket and by the time that Mello realizes that they're handcuffs, they're already around his wrists.

"When I was a child," B says, "I wanted to work at a whorehouse. I thought it seemed romantic, you know? The body as a commodity, to be bought and sold. It's transcendence without the transcending. I thought it was very beautiful. Then L told me that no one would ever want to have sex with me." He laughs and latches Mello to what is probably the radiator. "He was 12 at the time. He ate his words later, just like he ate the skin off my bones."

Mello yanks at the cuffs, struggling with renewed vigor. "You're so full of shit," he grits. "I don't even know what you're talking about and I don't care!" Beyond moves out of his line of sight and Mello jerks around to try to see what he's doing, shuffling over to the other side of the room. "I don't care! Are you listening?"

"Pipe down, will you, goldilocks?" B calls over. Then there's a thump and Mello watches Watson's body collapse in a heap not a few feet away. B grins over the top of it. "Hey, you wanna see something neat?"

* * *

He wakes up in a church. It's the first of many mornings. It doesn't look like a church because it's the back room, where they keep the spare crucifixes and the extra hosts. He doesn't know any of this now, but he'll know it later. The year is 1985. He'll know that later, too.

It's snowing today. He knows that now. It had snowed all night and into the morning and he'd fallen asleep to the gentle rocking of his body against someone's chest, listening to the wind whistle through the stone. That person is not here now. Neither is her chest. There are men with black robes and lined faces and very little hair, all squinting down at him in mild, disdainful puzzlement. They argue. Nobody wants to keep him but nobody particularly wants to throw him away. There's a man with a pipe and harsh laugh and he doesn't look, doesn't contribute more than vague, joking suggestions, but he's the one who takes him in the end. Finds him new shoes and a warm coat, clothes for the little boy with dirty hands. Charity. One of the seven heavenly virtues.

He knows he should say, "Thank you," but all he can manage is, "Where is my mother?" over and over again until his voice goes hoarse and quiet. They find him bedding and they find him food - snacks, sweets from town, little boy food. His mother is not coming back and he decides, after a day of waiting, that she must have died. She died, so of course she can't come. He cries into the laughing man's robes and gets knocked off to the side. Can't be bothered, he says. Has a mass to do, he says.

The laughing man stops laughing. The laughing man stops smoking his pipe. After a while, the laughing man gets put in a plot behind the chapel, and the little boy sleeps and wakes in the church every morning for three years.

That's when the rest of them start dying.

* * *

Mogi's easy. He doesn't talk much, so Aiber does all the talking, lays it down and lets it settle. He's been through it enough times before - Matsuda, Aizawa, Ide - it's just the chief after this, and maybe a bit more fucking around with the girl, and things will start to unravel.

"You - " Mogi says, quiet, not angry and not confused and not anything really, just quiet. "You're saying - L and Light?" It's a comparatively calm reaction. Aizawa had thrown a shit-storm about speaking ill of the dead. Ide had blushed and told him to fuck off. Matsuda, well - Matsuda had been a bit more fun at least.

"Yes," Aiber says, nodding. "L and Light, Light and L. Anyway you wanna slice it, it happened."

They're in a downscale bar that he imagines Wedy would turn her little designer nose up at, but Aiber feels at home here. He remembers slipping out of his house to sneak into places like this when he was a teenager. Couldn't go to any of the nice bars in town, because more nights than not, his folks would already be there, doing shots off of each other's stomachs and pawing at people half their respective ages. He'd been 19 and two years out of the house before he'd actually legally entered a club, and a few months older when it had been one that didn't have vomit on the sidewalk out in front.

Tokyo's night life isn't bad, but he can't stomach it anymore, and doesn't have time to, anyway. There's too much to do, too much to find out, and the days move faster now, or else rush past him in a haze of alcohol and Lucky Strikes and boys with hips almost like L's. He'd barely made it out of bed this morning, but Watari had called and then called four more times until he'd picked up, head throbbing and some little prick yelling for his money in rapid Japanese.

_"Mogi today," _Watari had said, and so here he is today, with Mogi.

The whole plan is to bring Light Yagami down from the inside. If they drop enough hints, sow enough discord, and maybe drive Misa Amane a little crazy in the meantime, eventually something's got to give. Yagami evidently doesn't suspect anything, because Aiber hasn't noticed his heart stopping yet, but it's only a matter of time. Still, if they can find L - and they _will_ find L - quickly enough, it won't matter. They'll get him back and Yagami will go to the execution chair and things will go back to how they'd been. Criminals will keep on going the way they had, and the world might swallow itself whole, but there will be more days on more mattresses on more floors, and he will hold L's wrist and L will fall asleep - for real this time - and it will be -

It will be alright. Or something like that.

"I don't know if I should believe you," Mogi says, and he might as well be reading stock phrases from the catalogue of,_ 'things to say when receiving surprising news.'_

Aiber splits up his smirk with his drink. God, this is so easy, he might as well not have gotten up in the first place. A text message and well placed emoticon could have done just as well, and he wouldn't have to foot the bill for their drinks. He'd offered to pay, of course. A scheme is a scheme, but that's no excuse for bad manners.

"I don't know if you should either," he tells him, setting down his drink. The glass is foggy and he leaves thick fingerprints all over it, wipes them away with the edge of his sleeve and his mouth tastes like frost and the ash Wedy left behind. "Hell, I don't know anything. But you're a sharp guy, Mogi-san. I'm sure you'll figure it out."

He reaches out a friendly hand and knocks him on the shoulder, patting his back like they're old war buddies or something. Aiber's not the type to have war buddies, though. He's not the type to enlist in the first place. He throws some crumpled bills on the table and stands up, feeling airy and relieved. There's a clattering, stilted sound across the room as a very drunk man in a very cheap suit knocks into one the waiters and then apologizes profusely, stumbling over his words like stones on the pavement.

"What are you using me for?" Mogi asks then, and Aiber smiles charmingly at him on instinct, only processing the question after the expression has formed on his face.

His hand is still on the table and he doesn't move, just leans there. "Excuse me?"

Mogi is looking at the table, scratching the cheap wood with two errant fingers. "You're using me for something, right?" he says, sounding as unmoved as ever. "It's a game. You guys are always playing games and you're always using us in them." He curls his fingers up to stop them clawing at the table and Aiber can see him reign in the urge. "You, L, Light, Kira."

Maybe Aiber should pay more attention to the fact that Mogi groups Light together in the same manipulative group as the rest of them, but as it is, it barely registers. Instead he frowns and sits back down, planting a finger on the table and saying, "Hey, I'm not one of _them_."

"Yeah," Mogi says, not seeming to intend any particular offense, "you are."

"No, I'm not."

Aiber picks up his half-empty drink and tosses it back, swallowing with a grimace and enjoying the the fizzle and burn at the back of his throat. He's not sure what to say to that, hadn't penned anything like this into the script and has never been very good at improvising. Never been that good at planning either.

He's just never been very good.

He flags down the bartender and orders another, and one more for Mogi, too, even though his glass is mostly full. They don't look at each other, but Mogi's back to clawing at the table - a nervous habit, reminds him of the way his sister used to scratch at her arms until they were scabbed and bleeding; reminds him of how they'd put her in a long-sleeved dress for the funeral, and peonies, peonies everywhere, peonies for the girl who'd had pollen allergies when she'd been alive. Their drinks come and someone is singing drunkenly out on the street, performing for the laughing crowd.

"So what if L and Light were seeing each other?" Mogi asks him after a few long, silent minutes. Aiber wonders what the hell he's been thinking about, wonders what a man like him even thinks about. "So what?" He doesn't even make it sound like a question. It doesn't sound like anything. Aiber might as well be at a table by himself.

"They weren't seeing each other," Aiber grits at him, trying not to be affected, shoving whatever the words raise out of him back in with another gulp and a hand across his mouth. "They were fucking. It's different. L didn't - " he tries, flounders, "- _that_ was a game."

Aiber can't decide if he's gotten the job done or not. Watari would probably tell him to try a little harder, the old bastard.

* * *

Mogi puts his hands in his lap to stop the scratching, says, "Are you sure you don't think Light is Kira just because L did?" His voice is deep, pleasant, too pleasant for the words and Aiber hates violence, hates when people bleed ugly all over his clothes, but he wishes Wedy's gun was here, and he maybe wishes Wedy was here, too, because doesn't know how to point the damn things. "What evidence do you really have?" Mogi asks.

And there's a switch that's happened somewhere along the lines, because when his glass was full, he'd been the one behind the counter, asking the questions, taking the notes. But now Mogi looks calm and Mogi looks placating, and those are both things Aiber can't afford to be, or hasn't since L disappeared. October 31st. Fucking halloween, and isn't that a good joke? His own fucking birthday. Isn't that a better one? He puts his hand on the table and squares his jaw and tries to focus on Mogi's face instead of the bar lights twinkling behind him.

"L's gone," he says, trying to remember Mogi's question as best he can, "and the only people who knew his identity and knew where to find him were on the investigation team. Now unless you think Matsuda is Kira - "

"I think you're drunk," Mogi says, no condemnation in his voice. Aiber looks at his glass and it's empty, and this all seems like a really terrible idea now.

"So what if I'm drunk?" he says, pushing his hair out his eyes, where it falls in thick strands. He needs a shower, needs a glass of water, needs someone nice to take home. "So what, right?" He stands up, stumbling out of his chair with exaggerated incapability so that Mogi will stand from his own and take him by the arm. He does, plays just right even though he doesn't seem to know that he's playing.

They make it out into the street, into the thick, cold air, and Aiber thinks about kissing him but doesn't, and it's just another blurry night in a blurry month.

* * *

**two hours earlier.**

* * *

Light whimpers often and he reminds L of a child. Not of any of the children's he's known in particular - stony-faced little overachievers who are more akin to Light when he's up an about and tearing apart the world - but what he imagines the generic child must be like. Helpless and curled up and afraid of itself, of its circumstance, and unable to define the world around it through language or coherent thought; a being who lives through white noise and desperation. Light whimpers and L brushes his sweat-soaked hair up from his forehead and rather wants to be able to take care of him - for convenience's sake - without having to admit to the fact to any of the parties involved, himself included.

"What would you do if you escaped?"

Rem's voice is low, kept quiet so as not to wake Misa, who's been out in the chair for going on an hour. L's body locks up at the shock of it, but he pretends to be unfazed. The thing about a Shinigami is that there's no presence to it. Whether it's because they're not from this world or if they're simply like that regardless, he doesn't know, but it's highly unnerving, either way.

"Eat an ice cream sundae, probably," he tells her, without turning around, and after a moment she floats into view, phenomenally unobtrusive for someone of her size and appearance. Maybe it's the way the dejected look on her face has become even more dejected than usual, but he guesses at her intention fairly easily. "You're curious about what would happen to Misa, I assume?"

Rem says nothing and L puts a finger to his lips.

"Can Shinigami really become attached to humans, or have you just seen her in her underwear too many times?"

The shift is instant and the boil of her anger is suddenly palpable, her one eye narrowing to a slit, and it strikes him then that Shinigami are really real, not just in the vague, plastic way that most things are real - gaming consoles and fried ice cream and tax returns - but real in a human way; an uncomfortable, gutting way. She's embarrassed, he realizes, ashamed of her feelings, and he instantly likes her all the more for it. A thing wracked with shame and doubt and quietness is infinitely more sympathetic than even the nicest man with the surest smile and the cleanest conscious, with no thought of possible wrongdoing.

L tries to smile at her. She takes it as a threatening gesture.

"You're despicable," she says, lips curling around the words with a familiar disdain. "You're just like him."

It's not hard to know who _he_ is. L could be insulted, but he laughs instead, glancing at the clammy forehead of the prettiest boy in town. It's terrible to want to kiss a sick man, no matter what definition of the word you use, and L is terrible.

"Not _just_ like," he says, "but close enough." Then he looks over at Misa, eyes tracing up her rumpled pajamas. "She'd go to jail at the very least, but execution is more likely. I might be interested in making a sort of bargain with you at some point, trading her freedom for mine, but not now." He glances back to Light, fingers running soft along the bedspread. "I have to stay here for a while. Someone's got to keep him from going completely off the deep end."

Rem snorts, or does the rough death god equivalent. "It seems as if you've already failed in that."

He rather agrees with her assessment, but admitting as much will help nothing, so he asks instead, "Would you give me the keys?"

"I thought you didn't want to leave," she says, looking from him and to the door and back again.

"I don't. I want to test something, see what his reaction will be if he thinks I'm escaping." He hold out his hands, wiggles his fingers. Rem doesn't present him with a mode of escape that easily, though, just ignores his hand. That's alright, he hadn't expected her to.

"He may kill you," she says.

"He may, but I doubt it."

The room is quiet, but there's the distant shake and shuffle of the building, the bang of doors closing. They're in a basement of some sort, he knows, and suspects it's no more than two levels down from the way the sound travels. He's not sure exactly where the building is, but from the occasional echoes of traffic that hit at certain points during the day, he can tell they're still somewhere in the city. Tokyo, no doubt, given how quickly and often Light comes and goes. Likely somewhere at least somewhat disreputable - somewhere no one Light knows could possibly run into or spot him. No doubt somewhere well hidden. Light might be an emotional wreck who's incapable of navigating honest human interaction, but he's still brilliant, and he wouldn't have left any ends hanging loose.

If L wants to get out of here ever, he has to rely on himself, not a chance rescue. And if he wants to get anything at all done, he has to get Rem to agree to this.

"What will you give me in exchange?" she asks, eye locked on him, but skipping up to glance at Misa every other second and she is a terrible liar and he realizes then how to get her to do absolutely anything he wants. He doesn't smile, but arranges his face in a suitably ponderous expression, shifting slightly to lean towards her.

"I'll provide a different sort of freedom for Miss Amane," he says, head tilting to the side, if only out of habit. She's seen him talk straight often enough to know that most of his mannerisms are put on, but she still listens with stuttered concentration as he speaks. "She's in love with him," he says, nodding to Light, "and that's no good for anyone, her included. I'll fix that for her."

"You don't think you can - "

"I'll make her fall in love with me," L says, firmly, more firmly than he actually suspects he feels. It's hard to tell how he feels, sometimes. "Please don't look so surprised, I do this sort of thing a lot. Practically make my living from it. It might not be easy and it might not be quick, but then it never is, and if I can sever her attachment to him, it will be worth it, won't it?" He lifts his eyes and does smile then.

She looks at him for a long moment, the off-color tendrils of her hair shifting in an eerie half-real way - as if she's only partly here, the rest scattered in faded, inhuman places - then produces a small set of keys from somewhere within the folds of what might be her skin and might be her exoskeleton. L wants to grab at them on sight, but has monitored enough hostage exchanges in his time to know that overeagerness never gets anyone anywhere, and stays stock still.

Rem looks him up and down, then glances to Light's huddled body on the bed next to him. "Promise," she says. Or I'll kill you myself."

"Pinky-swear," L tells her, nodding perfunctorily and holding out his hand. "Keys?"

Rem glances down at his finger, then slowly slips the largest key off of the ring, returning it to, presumably, wherever she'd gotten the rest, and hands him those that are left. "You're not getting out the front door."

As this is not an unforeseen turn of events, he just shrugs and says, "I don't intend to."

* * *

**two hours later.**

* * *

Mogi's hair smells like generic drugstore shampoo and he shoves Aiber off whenever he pushes his face into it, maneuvering him into the taxi with some difficulty and speaking in low-voiced Japanese to the sullen driver. Aiber speaks very good Japanese when he's sober - L had made him perfect it; L had made him do a lot of things, like yell, like scrub violently at his skull while vomiting onto a street corner in Montreal, like pay attention to the word choice in the shitty love poetry he likes to send to his favorite boys and girls - but Aiber is not sober now and L is not here and, plebeian as it is, he likes the smell of Mogi's hair.

"Where do you live?" Mogi asks him, communicating between him and the cab driver.

Aiber laughs because he suddenly finds it all excessively funny - him drunk in a cab, just the usual, and the blind man with his seeing eye dog leading him across the street a few yards away and the whirring glint of the Tokyo buildings that go up and up. It's all very funny.

"Where do you live?" Mogi asks him.

Aiber says, "France," and keeps laughing.

* * *

Until L was six years old, he'd lived in a church. Until he was 17, he'd lived with Beyond Birthday. Until a few months ago, he'd lived in complete silence.

All of those things are in some ways like the others and all of them are in some ways not, but none of them at all resemble what it is like to live with Light Yagami, and even that doesn't quite touch the reality of what it is like to live with Kira.

He misses the boy, actually. There'd been a night back - before things had lost their rose-colored tint, before they'd even truly fucked - where he and Light had gone up onto the roof together. L's feet had been cold, felt after a while like they weren't even there anymore, and the chain had dragged on the ground between them and Light had said, "You're a bad man, aren't you?" and L had said, "Your fly's undone," and Light had laughed and kissed him on the wrist.

But then, there had been moments when the silence was more peaceful than caging, moments when he'd watch the daily mass from the balcony above, eating stolen sweets and smelling like incense. Moments when Beyond would sit on his windowsill just after sunrise and tap out Bach's third Brandenburg Concerto on the wall beside him. And there'd also been the moments when B had left dead animals in his bed. Everything is pretty sometimes, and Light Yagami is no better than anything, even if he still kisses L's wrist.

Aiber would do that too. Aiber's hands were too large, and clumsy, and the pleasure of sex with him was that he wasn't very good at it. L was always better. Aiber was sloppy, Aiber smiled while fucking, did a whole 'Hugh Hefner in an armchair; you should prance around for me' thing, and did it well. He'd fall asleep after, sometimes on top of L, and L would have to kick him awake and off the bed if he wanted to get any work done.

Wedy's better. Was better. She had technique, as she did in all things, and made quite a production out of it. She liked restraints and she liked for her lipstick not to smudge and she liked a cigarette after, and to be the one to tell him to get out. She'd cook breakfast - eggs, bacon, pancakes, straight-up American style; never was much of a patriot, but never liked any country she was in any better - and tell him if he wanted to eat, he'd eat what she made. He, of course, went hungry, mostly just on sheer principal.

Thierry Morello wanted to be an actor when he was younger. Saved up his money and went to university for it. Found he was better at playing roles in real time, better when he could touch and smile and speak in low-voiced, conspiratorial whispers with the audience he was performing for. Merrie Kenwood always wanted to be a thief. Her mother wanted her to be Miss America and took her to beauty pageants all over the country. Merrie started lifting the prize money in the middle of the contests by the time she was fourteen. Started fucking the judges, just for kicks, a little while after that. She still calls her mother every week in her nursing home.

Still did. Until -

Light is standing in the doorway. He looks winded and he looks like he's just been shot and he looks like he might up and murder L here and now and L thinks, good. Good, then they can sort this. They can finally put aside their oh so precious little feelings and brawl it out, scrabble and scrape and break bones until one of them bleeds and keeps bleeding and doesn't stop bleeding. Let them settle this like mammals. Let them settle this like monsters.

L is on the floor, curled up, but his fingers itch and as soon as Light makes a move to hit him, L is going to hit back. His body coils, his feet twitch, and it's going to hurt. He can feel it already, the echoes of something that hasn't happened yet. Light moves slowly, or quickly, and L thinks about his fine thighs and the way his fingers move neatly, in a straight line, as he writes. _"You're a bad man, aren't you?"_ and it's applicable on all sides, to all parts of the situation.

Light stops, stands in front of him, and the sound of his knees on the floor as he drops down next to L is not loud, but it jars the room anyway. And the feeling of Light's hand on his shoulder rocks through him and it's very quiet and he wants to move, he wants to hit him, he wants -

And then Light's breath is in his hair and his hands are scraping around his back and he says, "L," and he says, "How?" and L says, "What?" and Light tugs him by his hair and hugs him, very tightly and unexplainably.

He hadn't expected this, but he ought to have trained himself to expect the least likely and most out-of-place reactions from Light in all situations, and would if he let experience dictate things. He is choking L or he is hugging him and he is always doing one of those things, volleying violently from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other, as if the only way to justify his affection is to balance it with utter loathing and vice versa. He cannot decide whether to be the hero or the villain and he scraps his lines and rewrites them every other scene.

He's killed Aiber and Wedy, he wants to kill Watari. L is set to hate him and set to fight, because that is expected, that is how the story goes. When people do bad things to you, it is only good form to be hurt and unforgiving. Anything else is weak and improper and playing the show all wrong. Kill him. That's the way. That's the only way.

L hugs him back, though. He doesn't fully understand the situation and he doesn't fully need to. Light smells like sweat and he looks exhausted and he leans too heavily on L.

"How?" he repeats. "How did you do it?"

"I don't know," L says, because he doesn't even really understand what Light's asking. How he got out? "Rem, she gave me the key - "

"No, not that. You - you."

It sounds like a question about L's existence, like some sort of philosophical inquiry. _Well, when a man loves a woman_ - or rather, thinks she looks good in her Sunday dress. Maybe L will tell Light about his childhood sometime, but he's fairly certain that's not what he's asking either. His body isn't as warm at it had been, his movements not as jerky, and his fever must be almost completely gone by now, or else he'd be dead, brain boiled in his skull. Still, he doesn't look healthy, not like his good old fake-smiling self again.

"Tell me how you did it?" Light repeats, but L still doesn't know what he's being asked, and suddenly Light's turning away, pushing out of his arms and speaking to a blank stretch of wall. "How did he do it? Did you do something? It doesn't make sense. It makes no sense."

"Light, do you need to lie down or something?" L asks, cautiously, because if Light isn't going to yell at him and fuck him against the wall for trying to escape, L would rather just set this all aside and get back to it in the morning. Perhaps he can convince Misa to go out for pastries if he tells her that Light needs them to get better and she pretends to be stupid enough to believe him.

All of his plans these days are dependent on the conspiratorial tendencies of a couple of mass murderers and a Shinigami. It would be funny if the humor hadn't worn off a week or so ago and his wrist wasn't itchy and the room wasn't curiously warm.

"Tell me," Light says to the wall again, and then it hits him. If Rem isn't sticking her head through the plaster, then someone else is, and since the list of people who have the ability to do that it conspicuously short, Light can only be speaking to one person - or, perhaps 'person' is the wrong term.

"Light," he says, pulling on his sleeves, pulling him back to face him. "Light, is there a Shinigami in the room?" Light's barely looking at him, and when he does, it's in a curious, wincing way, as if L is too bright or quick or strange for him to properly focus on. "I want to speak to it. Light, _look at me_."

He pulls his sleeve again and Light turns on him with a vehemence that's not unprecedented but certainly hadn't been present in the situation up until now, grabbing him by the face and tugging his chin up and jerky movements. "I am looking at you. Tell me how you did it."

"I don't know what you're asking me."

He really is completely out of his mind, isn't he, this boy of L's.

Light jerks his head around, goes from scowling imploringly at the blank wall to the doorway, where Rem floats, a tender sort of loathing in her face. "You," Light spits. "You did it, didn't you?" Rem just stares at him, until Light shakes his head. "No, you don't have that kind of power, _nothing_ has that kind of power, I - "

"Light," L says, firm hand of his shoulder. "Light - "

"Shut-up, I'm trying to think, I'm trying to - "

And L doesn't know what's going on, really, had a plan and succeeded in his plan and prepared for the natural fallout, but it's all not quite right. The world has tilted on its axis while he wasn't looking, leaving him to try to struggle to stand straight - to hold Light still, still and quiet - and get his bearings. He doesn't understand.

Then Rem holds up a piece of paper that makes Light's eyes go wild and hectic, accusing - somehow looking unattractive for one moment of his existence - and she says, "It wasn't a piece of the Death Note. It was a shopping list."

And then L rather does understand.

Light's muscles tense up, face searching, like he's attempting to figure out the punchline, then going loose and disbelieving. His body sort of slumps and his mouth curls unappealingly and L says, "You tried to kill me," at the same time as Light starts giggling. Madly. It's mad. He goes sort of boneless on L, fingers twining into his hair, and starts laughing like a maniac, body shaking with the tremors of it. It's not pretty, it's not pretty at all. Light had tried to kill him - with a shopping list, which is funny to some degree; which must have seemed dangerous to his addled little mind - and nothing about this situation is pretty.

If the story was going right, if it was any good at all, that would break the spell. L would be free. Goodbye, so long, see you. L would stop feeling the way he does, the need to brush Light's hair out of his eyes and put him to bed and tell him, _tomorrow will be better, tomorrow will be less afraid_. But it has always been a terrible story and as Light clutches him weakly as he laughs, L clutches him back.

Why does he always end up kissing psychopaths on the forehead? Why does he always he always end up with somebody else's blood on his hands, somebody who shouldn't be the one bleeding, somebody who should be the one cutting. Light is too much like B for his own good, at least as far as L is - was - concerned with either of them. He hopes they never meet. He hopes B's committed suicide by now, the way he always promised.

He shifts, pushing Light up a little, and repeats, "You tried to kill me." Light nods, laughter barely dying down. Rem watches them with disgust. The wall might as well be doing the same.

Light's still hanging on him, but as the laughter goes down, his grip gets harder, and in a moment or less he's pushing L into the wall, face pressed to his neck and half curled up in his lap. His breath comes rough and shaky and his fingers card through L's hair and _no_. If there was a time for relief-laden make-up sex, that time has passed. He shoves Light with one heavy push.

"You tried to _kill me_," he says again, not sure why it's so difficult to process, given that it can't quite be the first time. But it's just - it's just. "You couldn't even manage it properly."

"Not for lack of decisiveness," Light says, crawling back onto L like some dog that won't give up, no matter how many times it's kicked. He's so warm and so _good_, even now, but L shoves him away, pulling himself half to his feet, and then kicks him in the chest for good measure. Light goes down hard, scowling, but seems more bothered by the principal of being kicked than any pain. He grabs L's leg, pulling him down with him, and L goes, landing in a convoluted straddle across his waist.

"Just for lack of reading comprehension," L says, and hits him. He hits him again. He grabs him by the hair and he hits him again. Light's mouth starts to bleed and it gets on L's knuckles, but he's still smiling, grinning like a loon, and when he wraps his arms around him, L means to hit him again, but doesn't quite. "That's for Aiber and Wedy," he murmurs, running his thumb along Light's bottom lip, picking up some of the blood and showing it to him. It's unsanitary, of course. None of this has ever been close to clean.

He should be angry for all of it, for Light trying to kill him with a grocery list, but then he should expect it by now. This is what he's signed up for. This is what he's bought and paid for. This is what he owns.

L rolls off of Light and lies next to him on the dirty carpeting. The room is empty of furniture, of anything but them and Rem's dull eye in the doorway. "I'm going to get you back for all of it," he says. "You know that, right?"

Light looks at him and the smile is gone from his eyes. He's maybe going to say something, but he doesn't, and he's maybe going to kiss him, but he doesn't. They stay like that for a long time.

* * *

Back in the bedroom, Misa is asleep - drugged, L realizes, when he sees the needle; Light really enjoys using it, doesn't he? - and has been moved to the bed. By Rem most likely, and as much is confirmed when Light trudges in with L and locks the chain back around his wrist.

"I need to lie down," he says. "Move her."

Rem looks at him like she's about to do something very Death Godly and violent to him, and L rolls his eyes. "Don't be a shit, Light-kun." He pulls up the covers and climbs into the bed next to Misa, leaving a small space on the other side of of the bed - the bed that surely isn't meant to fit three people - and making himself comfortable not a few inches from Misa.

"Light," Light says, correcting him. He resents the honorific, L knows, which is mostly why he brings it out.

He watches as Light watches him, then, after a thin moment, unhooks the other end of the chain from the bed and attaches it to his own wrist, like they had the once. Like they had done before that, for a long, long time. He keeps watching as Light crawls into bed next to him, keeping to the edge like he's afraid to touch anything. There's blood drying on his face. It will ruin the sheets.

L kisses his wrist, the chained one, and says, "Don't be a shit, Light," while trying not to smile.

Light falls asleep quickly enough - must still be exhausted from his fever, hasn't even eaten anything - and L lies there through night and daybreak between the first Kira and the second, their respective breaths a contrasting rhythm in the dark.

* * *

There is a heart on his chest.

There is a heart in his chest, but there is also a _heart on his chest_. Mello is chained to something, counting up and down from ten to keep calm, breaking into hysterical struggles every once in a while for good measure, and Beyond Birthday is doing something out of his sight that involves a lot of squelching and muted giggling and some humming of what sounds like a Ramones song, and then Beyond is standing over him, grinning like the devil on a hot day and _there is a heart on Mello's chest_.

It's still warm. The blood is soaking into his shirt. Its Watson's, it must be. Watson had tried to rape him he doesn't know how long ago and now he's dead and Beyond Birthday has cut out his heart and it's on Mello - like a live thing, like a creature - and he can't, he _can't_ -

"You've stolen his heart, you see," B says, in his tinkling, smiling voice. His teeth are very shiny in the street lights from outside. "You're a smooth little criminal. You're a very pretty boy."

B pokes at the heart with the tip of one dirty trainer. Mello thinks about crying again, but he can't breathe. This is terrifying and very calm at the same time, and he's not dead yet, so he doesn't really know what.

"What, " he tries, "what - why are you doing this?" And that's stupid, _stupid_, psychopaths don't need a reason to go around cutting people's hearts out.

Beyond kneels down next to him and Mello flinches on instinct, tries to shimmy away, but he can't move, he can't move. "You ever been to the Orient, you little heartbreaker?" he asks, and Mello doesn't know what the hell he's taking about, doesn't know what the hell at all. "Either way, you and I are going to go on a little journey to the east." He grins so wide, too wide. "Like the monkey story, only in the opposite direction and with less moralizing. I've always wanted to see Tokyo in the winter, haven't you?"

He brushes Mello's hair out of his eyes with one gaunt, spidery hand, and Mello thinks _don't _at the same time as he thinks _oh_. Oh.

* * *

**tbc.**

* * *

**end notes:** I don't really know what's going on with my writing in this chapter. I feel like I've hit overdrive in the rambling poeticism department and I'm pretty sure I tone it down for a while after this? I hope? God, it just feels very stilted and awkward this time and maybe I was going for that but reading it back gives me hives. Still, it's been too long since I updated, so I think it's important that I learn to suck up my dissatisfaction and just get on with the story.

The 'shopping list' thing was possibly a cheap cop-out but it was always going to be. I wanted to build up something with dramatic tension and all that, then have it fall a little flat and be a mundane little fuck up - ridiculous but human. I don't think I really succeeded though, so it just reads sloppily. God, I'm whiny today.

If anyone is confused as to why Aiber is still alive (which is very possible because it happened about a million years ago), there's a flash-forward in chapter two in which Wedy changes her and Aiber's names within L's system, so that Light will not be able to kill them. Hence, survival! Like I would really let go of those two babydolls. Wedy will be beck, too, just in case anyone doubted that.

The 'monkey story' that Beyond is referring to is _Journey to the West,_ a classical Chinese novel about Monkey, a pseudo-trickster figure in Chinese mythology.

Thanks for reading and *throws away any and all pretense at decorum* please review if you can. but of course, I'll love you all either way.


	14. still no surviving

**notes:** and on this week's episode of _a lot of words and no plot events_ i bring you chapter 14 of nights. i have two apologies to make, the first being about the wait for this update and the second being about the quality of writing contained therein. it is not my best by a long shot and i struggled so much with this but, short of rewriting the entire thing (which would have taken another two weeks at the least) i did as much as i could with it. i have to treat this fic like an experiment, and its chapters like a series of experiments, if i don't want to go crazy and weep in shame at everything about it. sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and that's okay.

i'm going to work really hard to make the next chapter better, for myself and for you guys. if you make it through this one, my hat off to you, and thank you, thank you, thank you for sticking with me this long. over 150k is amazing to me and not something i ever considered i'd achieve this year, and it's because of all of you that i've made it this far. i can't tell you how much i appreciate your support (and any constructive criticism too!).

special thanks to** tai black** for sending me a sweet message and encouraging me to post this, despite how unsatisfied with it i am. it mean a lot to me, doll!

* * *

**chapter fourteen - still no surviving.**

* * *

"Despair has its own calms."

- Bram Stoker, _Dracula_

* * *

No one really goes into Wammy's former-observatory for anything other than drinking and making out, and nobody at Wammy's really drinks or makes out, so that had more or less just left Mello and Matt with a cool, empty room in which to smoke and talk and take the piss out of whoever'd been bugging Mello that day. Now Mello's gone and the air is too cold and the smoke from Matt's cigarette mixes visibly with his breath. He coughs on a lung-full and then pretends that he hadn't. Mello had always ragged on him for it, had said he'd probably die of second-hand cancer or something and then Matt'd be sorry. Always smiled like an arse and flicked balled-up notes at the ends of Matt's cigarettes, saying maybe one day they'd catch and the whole building would go up in flames - said it like a good joke, like nothing at all.

His aim had always been off, though; never quite hit the mark.

"Where do you think he is now?" Near says from the doorway, pale and eerie and suddenly there, like a ghost haunting the early morning.

Matt glances at him briefly, but doesn't pause his handheld game. "Are you trying to make conversation?" he asks, just because he knows that Near isn't and wouldn't ever.

He doesn't move from the doorframe, just curls a finger through his hair. "No," he says. "Roger told me to ask you." Matt snorts, could have figured out as much on his own - he's number three, after all; or is it two now? - and jams his finger harder than he needs to into the 'X' button. "He said to pretend that I was asking for myself but that I would really be asking for him."

Matt grits a smile. Near says it like a clueless child, but then that's the technique, isn't it? Matt's sure he's being manipulated somehow at this very moment, but then he couldn't truly care overmuch.

"Good job on that," he tells Near.

"I'm not stupid," Nears says, taking two very measured steps into the room. He looks like something discarded and small. His eyes are wider than usual. He's doing it on purpose.

"I know you're not stupid," Matt says.

Near takes another two steps. "I could have manipulated the information out of you."

"So you _are_ trying to make conversation," Matt says dully. Near keeps moving closer, slowly, cautiously.

"Do you miss him?" Near asks, nearly standing over him now.

Matt frowns, nearly misses the jump, thumbs tapping furiously to keep up. "Yes."

"Did you ever kiss him?"

Matt's fingers stop. He misses that time, falls into a pit, gets the cheesy 'game over' screen with the winding-down music that plays in his head, even though the sound is off. _Retry?_ He wants to set the game aside but he doesn't want to Near to see him set it aside, or know that that is the kind question that makes him set things aside.

"What?" he says, which is stupid and ridiculous and obvious, obvious, _obvious_, but he doesn't know what else to say.

There's a hole in the observatory ceiling, the glass shattered near the apex of the dome. There's plaster over it, but the cold air still gets in. It's been like that since Matt came to Wammy's, since before him, even. Nobody remembers there ever not being a crack in the ceiling. Nobody remembers the observatory ever being in use. It's common knowledge that Roger could afford to fix it, and less common - but widely suspected - that L's the one who refuses to let him. No one really knows why. Not that many people care, anymore. Mello had. Mello cares about everything.

Matt's fingers tap awkwardly at the screen, haphazardly pretending to still play, as if Near hasn't already noticed his sudden stiffness.

"Linda and some of the girls were wondering," Near says, casually, like that's just the sort of thing you say to someone. He looks at Matt expectantly, who frowns, finally tossing away the gameboy and plucking up his cigarette.

"No," he says. Then, almost as an afterthought, "Fuck off."

"Did you want to?" Near asks.

Matt takes a long puff, looking away, and tries to seem unconcerned. "What is this, _Jeopardy! _or something? No. Why would I want to kiss him?"

Near shrugs, face blank, but he looks too clever and too sure and Matt doesn't like him right now. He's always just rode on the coattails of Mello's loathing, only along for the ride, but never really had the energy to hate the little bastard properly. Probably still doesn't now, but he likes to pretend otherwise.

"He could pass for a girl," Near says.

Matt's chest skitters a little bit and he feels gross, like a pervert, like some creep taking up-skirt shots of a school-girl. Mello would fall asleep next to him all the time, would stay up all night studying and then pass out on Matt's shoulder or lap, pretty and too helpless for the kind of person he was. Matt would think about touching him. Not - not in a bad sort of way, not sexually or anything - just, his hair, his chin, the tips of his fingers. His nose. He's got a nice nose, and girly hair. That's what Matt had told himself at first - he was pretty like a girl, small and smooth - and - and so it made sense. Nothing wrong with it, nothing to do with Mello at all.

Then Matt had walked in on him in the shower, got an eye-full of cock and a wet towel thrown at his head and a lot of over-reactionary swearing directed at him - and had backed quickly out of the washroom, hard and ashamed and utterly resigned to his attraction.

"I'll tell him you said that when he gets back," Matt says, laughs almost, trying to play it cooler than he feels.

Near tilts his head. "What makes you think he's coming back?"

Matt taps his burned-down cigarette against the tip of a new one, balanced awkwardly between his lips, and it lights nicely, pretty, like a forest fire cupped under his palm. Like everything burning, everything ruined forever and ever. He knows he's being melodramatic. Roger had said as much to him last week in order to get him to buck up on his studies, but Matt's more or less committed to the role. Mello's gone, so someone has to do it.

He breathes out a puff of smoke and says, "What do you want, Near?"

Near collapses inwardly, falling do the floor in a casual heap a few feet from Matt, as if that's the invitation he'd been waiting for. "Beyond Birthday escaped from prison two weeks ago," he says, getting comfortable, like the cold stone floor is as good as any surface for lolling about.

It takes Matt a moment to process the words, takes him a moment more to recognize the ridiculous name. B. One of the original Wammy kids. The Beta to L's Alpha. Or was A Alpha? He was the suicide kid, Matt remembers. So maybe L was Omega? Either way, B was definitely Beta, or back-up, or possibly just _bat-shit_, from the stories Matt has heard.

"What, that psycho guy?" Matt says, taking another drag. "I thought he'd been executed or something." There have always been whispers around Wammy's, and Beyond Birthday had featured rather heavily in some of them. And then hadn't Mello been on a kick about Beyond Birthday a few years back? Over something L had said, presumably.

"That was one of the popular theories circulating," Near says, so clinically and professionally, even while rolling around the the floor. "It's been disproved."

"How do you know?"

"Roger told me."

Matt taps the ash off the end of his cigarette. "Okay. Why are you telling me, then?"

Near looks up at him with those wide eyes again. "Because you're my friend."

Matt can't help the snort he lets out, choking a bit on the smoke in his lungs, and it turns into a cough. He smiles self-deprecatingly as he hacks it out. "Near, don't fuck around. Why are you telling me?"

Near's eyes stay wide and genuine for a moment, before calming down, the childish sparkle fading in on itself and leaving him dull and without any particular affectations once again. "Because," he says, pushing himself back up to his feet, "Beyond has been spotted around the English countryside and no one knows where Mello went. I thought if you were worried about him, you might be more likely to tell me where he is." He stands there, looking at Matt, face not changing, not even a twitch. The switch might be disconcerting, but then Matt's used to it - everyone at Wammy's is.

"Should I be worried?" he asks Near, scratching his ear again. In truth, he's got no idea where Mello might be - London, the US, Japan already - who fucking knows? He could guess, sure, but then so could anyone, and he'd rather leave it to them.

But, if Mello's in serious danger -

"He's fifteen," Near says, and doesn't blink. "He's got no money, no relatives, and nowhere to go. You should be worried anyway."

Matt's skin itches as Near walks away. His game screen blinks up at him, the pixels flashing obnoxiously. _Retry?_

* * *

Misa wakes with L's hair tickling her cheek. It's rough, clumping and unwashed, but her eyelashes flutter against it and it's nice - nothing earth-shattering, nothing to fall in love over - but it's just nice. She ought to have nice things, sometimes, ought to -

Oh. She opens her eyes and his are right there, wide and on curious and on her, like she's a specimen under a microscope and he's the man in rubber gloves, running tests, taking notes. That's less nice. She pulls the cover up more fully over body, shielding herself even though she's completely clothed. That's a naked kind of stare. Things are never as nice as she wants them to be.

L blinks at her and she sits up, arms folding across her chest. "It's really creepy to watch people while they sleep like that, Ryuzaki," she says.

The hand thrown across L's back twitches and a soft breath of laughter ruffles the hair on the back of his head. "Don't I know it," says Light's muffled, sleepy voice. He sounds beautiful. She can only see the tips of his hair, his fingers and his shirt sleeve, but he's so beautiful.

L grunts, position shifting slightly, but he looks comfortable. Light strokes his arm for a moment, the gesture peculiarly sweet, but after a few seconds his body goes tenser and his movements more studied. She wonders if he always clams up as he wakes or if it's just because she's here.

The room is pleasantly cool. Someone must have turned the heater off. Maybe Rem. Rem, who had held her against her will last night, stopping her from chasing L, from using her Death Note to stop him. She's not sure what had happened, but L is here and Light is here and they're both both alive and relatively unharmed, so it all must have worked out fine without her.

Misa ties her hair back in a ponytail as Light sits up. She says, "This is weird."

L yawns. "It seems perfectly unremarkable to me."

Light starts smiling, but then stops, moving unsteadily up and out of the bed as he mumbles, "That's because you're a whore." There's a click and a slight jangle and then the chain is dropping on the bed and he's padding softly across the floor, picking up loose pieces of clothing. Both Misa and L watch as he chooses a sweatshirt, pulling it over his head with a slight wiggle. It's almost endearing. Misa feels almost endeared to him. He'd stabbed her with a needle, she remembers, but that seems minor in comparison to the calming benevolence of the moment.

He checks his watch. "Come on, Misa, we've got to get back to the apartment before morning." He glances in the mirror, frowns and pulls up his hood. "Suspicions aside, I really don't want to be seen like this by anyone I know."

Misa watches as he attaches the loose end of L's cuffs back to the headboard, and she should feel something - jealous or angry or betrayed - but it's not coming. She stands brushing her hair out of her eyes and looking for her shoes. There's the stack of books she'd brought over for Light a day and a half ago, sitting untouched by the door. Everything shifts strangely as she moves and it's not right, the world tap-dancing under her, bright and too much at a time.

"What even happened yesterday?" she asks, more quietly than she means to. There's a hip-shift and head-tilt and a hair-flip that she needs to do, a little extra bit of pep that she needs in her voice and it usually comes easy - more natural to her interactions than not - but right now it's all stilted, achey in a distant way. She blinks, sees a flick of metal and Light's stern face and then it goes blank, the image twitching behind her eyes. She looks up. "You drugged me, didn't you?"

Light's still examining himself in the mirror, wiping invisible smudges off of his face. He barely seems to hear her.

L is curled up on the bed, finger to his mouth, and he glances between Light and Misa and then makes a sound that is maybe pitying and maybe disparaging as he rolls his eyes. "Did you?" he asks, addressing Light. "Jesus, you're a terrible boyfriend. I should track down this - Mikami, was it?" He looks to the ceiling, tugging on his lip. "Send him a letter of warning."

"Who's Mikami?" Misa asks, before she can stop herself. She doesn't know why she would stop herself - Light's her boyfriend, her responsibility, she has to know these things - but listening to them speak to each other is like picking a scab, like teasing herself with all sorts of things colored _misery_. There's a circuit here, one she's left out of, and she wants to dig a place for herself in it and she wants to go back to sleep and she wants -

She wants for Light to not stab her with needles. She wants him to not drug her, not shrug off everything she says, not glance right past her like she's a plant or some kind of light fixture. She feels like a cardboard cut-out of a girl when she's around him, like she's not even real. Like the only thing that's real is him, and she just - she wishes he wouldn't stab her with needles.

"I mean it, Misa-san," L's saying, but he's not even speaking to her, staring across the room at Light, who's, of course, staring back, "you should cut and run while you still can."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Misa says, pulling on her shoes, and she's not quiet or anything, but it's like her words simply fade into the air, not reaching either of them. Where's Rem? She needs Rem. She needs someone to look at her and see something.

"I don't know what's given you the impression that she still can," Light says, straightening out his sleeves. He's unkempt this morning, face still lined with yesterday's sickness, but still so lovely. Misa would like to touch him and most days she would, just grab on and hold tight until he shoves her away, but this morning she pulls her boots on and doesn't move.

"Hiroshi Ono, Light," L says, as Light gathers up everything he'd brought the other day, handing some of it off absently for Misa to put in her bag. "Make the call."

Light sighs, rolls his eyes. Misa has no idea what they're talking about and doesn't really care. "I should just kill him," Light says. "Nip it the bud."

"Oh, like you nipped me in the bud?" L asks, voice rougher suddenly. "Yes, that worked out well." He sounds angry and Light looks angry and Misa -

Misa's angry, too, she thinks. Quietly, staunched and snuffed out, but there's fissures of something twisting under her skin. What had happened last night? Light had been on the floor, she remembers, and she had tried to help him, but he wouldn't let himself be helped, wouldn't let her touch him.

"I'm not even sure if he's the right man," L says, "and if he's not and you kill him, you'll not only end the life of an innocent person, but you may rob us of a valuable lead in apprehending the real killer. Set aside your notebook for once and use common sense."

_L Lawliet_, Misa thinks. It could be very, very easy, and then he's gone.

Light huffs, throwing the bag of supplies Misa had brought by yesterday over his shoulder. "Yes, of course, I'll just take the advice of the man chained to bed."

"As the man who chained me to the bed," L mumbles, "you haven't exactly got a leg to stand on."

_Light Yagami_, Misa thinks. That could be easy, too, maybe.

Light smiles and it's sharp and he's still not looking anywhere but at L, almost leaning down over him, fingers stressing the sheets against the mattress and L meets his eyes, doggedly unconcerned, and Misa stands by, not doing anything in particular. She feels more apart from the situation than she maybe ever has, even though she'd apparently shared in a bed with the two of them last night. It feels like everything has skipped ahead by entire chapters, and she's left leafing from page to page, trying to catch up.

"If last night proved anything," Light says, low-voiced and more intense than the early morning, half-awake situation probably necessitates, "it's that I have the follow-through to do _it_, and would have, in a more coherent state of mind." He flicks L's hair out his eyes with one quick finger. "So don't get too comfortable."

L doesn't flinch, just rolls his eyes, glancing to the ceiling. "I don't know how I could be comfortable with your cock digging into my back all night."

Light's expression tightens. "You want to talk about excessive sexual - "

"Shut-up," Misa says, quietly at first, but then - "Both of you - just, _shut-up_."

L breathes out, puffing at the ceiling without looking at her as Light shoots a huffy glare over his shoulder. He hates being interrupted. He hates a lot of the things she does, and she wants to be heard and she wants to stand firm and she wants to tell them that they're both as bad as the other and should just _let it go_, whatever it is, but instead she looks at the floor, quiet again, and says, "Misa has a headache."

Light still looks annoyed, but he straightens, picking up the rest of his things and not glancing back at L. "We have to go," he says, flicking out a hand to gesture Misa out the door ahead of him, calling back, "I'll make the call if I have time," in a voice that teases the notion that he'll purposefully forget.

Rem is waiting in the hall outside, arguing hushed and flat-eyed with Ryuk, but she goes quiet as soon as she sees them. A pit of something blessed and strangling with relief lights in Misa's stomach at the way Rem's head turns, the way she looks Misa up and down, as if checking for signs of damage. The moment is calm and freeing and she almost forgets Light is there, pulling the door closed behind her.

The effect is somewhat ruined by L calling, "Enjoy the walk of shame, Light-kun," from his tilted pose on the bed.

* * *

**four hours earlier**.

* * *

He's dreaming something heady and close, but it all flies out, replaced by the saliva in his mouth and the thick, real weight of the pillow against his face and the blanket across his chest and L's back curving under his hand. He's hot and he pulls himself up and over the sheets, breathing and blinking and thirsty, trying to get a grip on reality. It's dark. Someone must have turned the lights off. Maybe it was him. L's skin is cooler, feels less frantic under his fingertips, but not for very long. Light shifts, realizes he's hard against the backs of L's thighs, which explains the tautness in his muscles and the flowering heat in his face and maybe even the wild buzzing in his head. Maybe that's just sleep.

Maybe that's just a sound the world makes.

Light reaches down, feeling himself, adjusting with more stroking than is probably necessary, but then he's 18 and L's shirt is riding up and there's no reason on earth he can think of why he shouldn't jerk off all over L's back. Except maybe the sparkling idea that his front would be better. His face would be better. Him being awake and aware and humiliated would be better.

Light's wearing sweatpants and he's not sure why or how or if he was wearing them yesterday when he'd killed L - and he'd _killed L_ - not really, not really, of course, but that's semantics, isn't it? But then he looks at L's still body and there's a momentary jerk of reality where his whole mind comes to a halt and there's just - nothing more than a split second - but there's just that moment where he doubts his memory, where it all could have gone differently, where L is lying in this bed next to him without a pulse, without a voice, without legs that will fight when he spreads and shoves between them.

Then everything snaps back into focus and L takes a breath in his sleep, hair puffing out of his face and Misa sighs softly next to him and - and Misa is next to him and that can't possibly be allowed. It makes Light angry in a sparking, firelight kind of way. Makes him want kill L all over again just on principal, want to see Aiber and Wedy's bodies, wherever they are, want to write _Misa Amane_ in his Death Note.

He lies back down, lining up is body against L's, pressing into the warm crevice between his thighs. There's too many clothes in the way and maybe Light should shove his own pants off, if anybody's, but he tugs at L's instead - he's sleeping in jeans, of course, always the fucking jeans, and the material is rough against Light's fingers, buzzing against his skin, and he wants, he _wants_ -

L's body suddenly goes very stiff, and not in the way he wants it too, jerking straight, head moving up, elbow slamming out to catch Light in the ribs. He barely manages to suppress the yelp bubbling at his throat, hand going to his abdomen as he chokes on the breath lodged in him. "_Fuck!_" he gasps, barely managing to keep his voice low.

He can feel L against him, moving, squirming, trying to shake him off in a flurried, panicked, altogether uncharacteristic scramble, but at the sound of Light's curse he freezes. "Light?" he says, tensed, but stilling at least, as Light gains his air back.

"Who else would it be?" he snaps, as quietly as he can, voice a harsh whisper. Far less seductive than how he'd originally intended to sound when he'd had his hand down L's waistband. L glances at him over his shoulder, dull eyes wide and deadpan, not seeming as if they have any trouble making him out in the dark, and shrugs. Light sits up, crossing his arms, and says, "Oh, a lot of people, I suppose."

L doesn't respond, doesn't even blink at the bait, just looks down at his lap where his jeans have been unbuttoned and shifted down a bit. "I was asleep," he says, blankly, looking back up at Light. "That's assault."

Light glances at Misa to makes sure she hasn't woken - he's not overly fond of this arrangement, but if he shoves her out of bed, she's sure to wake up and squawk at him - then back at L, rolling his eyes. "You did practically the same thing to me yesterday."

"It's always Old Testament justice with you, isn't it?" L murmurs. His voice isn't any lower than usual, but it still manages to seem quieter than Light's.

Light's skin is still hot. His cock is still hard. L looks as appealing in the dark as he does in the low lamplight usually coloring the room, as he had under the harsh fluorescents in the investigation headquarters. Oh, headquarters. Light will have to go into work tomorrow. Back to the daily grind. He wonders who's died while he was out of commission. He hopes everyone has. The city streets are too crowded and there are too many people out there that he has no desire to put his mouth on, who's hair he doesn't want to stroke with soft fingers. They're of no use. The world is all dirty and it's their footsteps spreading the muck.

One day it will just be him and L. One day. Later.

"I want to fuck you," he says, moving back towards L, pressing his length against the mess of sheets and bedclothes between them. He puts his mouth to the edge of L's jaw, right between his ear, sucking softly on the skin. He'd washed most of the blood off of his face before they'd gotten into bed, but his nose still rather aches. It's still feels good, in an unsettling way. Just the right amount of pressure.

He feels the flutter of L's eyelids like a breath against his cheek.

"You tried to kill me yesterday," L says, tone flat and unmoved as Light skates his finger back down to his crotch. It's a lot like a romance novel except for the girl on the other side of the bed and the fact that they both smell rather suspect. In romance novels everyone smells like a fucking rose. Light assumes. He's never actually read one.

He squeezes L, wants him to harp on about the attempt on his life, maybe give a whole monologue on it while being fucked, but he just skips over a catch in his throat, jerking slightly against Light, pressing into his hand, and says, "You killed Aiber and Wedy."

Well, yes. Yes, that's an established fact. No need to bring it up now. Light doesn't want to think about the fact that L has fucked Aiber and L has fucked Wedy and L has fucked whoever else - Matsuda, probably. That seems likely. And now it seems as if he's going after Misa. Light grinds against his hips, shoves his boxers down, too, and is as annoyed as he is turned on. The man just can't sit still, can't stop from throwing himself at the nearest warm body - for 'research,' of course, but then they both know it's some sort of deep-seated emotional disorder. Maybe it was his childhood. Maybe Daddy didn't hug him enough, or maybe he hugged him too much. Maybe Daddy was dead. Maybe L doesn't even have parents and just sprouted out of the ground like some weed that you can't keep out of the garden, and no matter how many times you uproot or spray him, he keeps coming back up. The only thing left to do is set the whole garden aflame. Watch him burn himself out.

Light mouths at L's neck, his ear, the slant of his cheekbone, and doesn't move much, doesn't blink, but his hips press slowly back into Light's hands and the heat is unbearable. Light is going to fuck him whether Misa wakes or not. Whether the police storm the door with guns and frowns and arrest warrants. His father could walk in. God, he wants his father to walk in, wants the whole investigation team to watch L squirming underneath him, made into a completely helpless thing.

L's breaths have gone heavier, his movements stilted by how much he wants it - god, of course he wants it, he always wants it, who wouldn't want Light - and puts a hand to Light's chest and says, "You killed Aiber and Wedy," again, in a low, mottled growl, holding the words up to Light like a shield, like that's going to keep him off.

Maybe if he was less turned on he'd care more, but as it is, he only wants L's legs and close breaths and rough, repetitive movement - like the animals, almost, like beasts, but then not, because the friction is glorious, above anything, and it flashes behind his eyes like paradise, like the garden set afire.

"I've killed hundreds of people," he whispers into L's ear, barely thinking about the words as he says them. "They're nothing special. Neither are you." He squeezes L's cock, shoving his legs apart, and the gutted, flushed look on his face makes Light's head swim. "Take your clothes off."

"The - " L bucks up into his hand, " - bathroom."

He's getting Light's fingers wet.

"Afraid she'll wake up?" he says into L's hair, glancing over at Misa's form, shifting slowly with even breathes. "I thought you said she wouldn't mind? Or was that only when I was sick and incoherent and you could do anything to me?" He runs his hand along L's face, softly, skin fizzing on contact. "Are you sick and incoherent now?"

"You killed them," L says, moving his hips against Light, letting him kiss him.

"Yes."

L breathes out again, looks dizzy, looks pretty. Light wants to melt him down for scrap and keep him locked away in jar. Light wants to set him out to sea, to burn the ashes.

"_Bathroom_," L says again, eyes rolling back, and Light smiles and concedes, if only because the sink counter will provide better leverage.

* * *

**four hours later.**

* * *

Light stands in the shower for several minutes before he starts washing himself. His knees feel bruised but when he looks down, there's no marks. Must be under the skin. He can't decide if the sex last night was brilliant or terrible, or if it had even happened. L had acted like it hadn't, but L is like that. Light wouldn't normally doubt himself or his perception of the world, but the last few days have been a fever dream that he's just scrubbing from his skin now. He's missed two days of work, Misa had said, but he feels like the entire bus of existence had passed him at the stop, which is a no good metaphor that L would rip apart if Light were to say it out loud. If L were here.

He shuts off the faucet and towels off, feet cold against the tile. Don't they have a bathmat? Misa ought to have bought one. That's what Misa's here for.

He comes out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist and stares at the clothes laid out on the bed. It looks like a suit that L would make fun of. Maybe that's why he'd chosen it.

Misa's in the doorway. "Who's Mikami?" she asks, casually, which of course means it's nothing but.

"Quiet, Misa," he says, running his fingers along the tie. It was a birthday present but he's forgotten who from. He'd started wearing suits more often when L had disappeared. He's told everyone it was because things were getting really serious and he had to be more professional. His suits are always black or dark gray. Everyone else says he's in mourning, and he lets them. He likes that answer better, anyway.

_God doesn't wear black_. Heh.

He's more or less mentally blocked out Misa's presence by the time he feels her finger on his chest - small hands, too small, and gentle and shaking, almost. He looks down, and she's staring up at him with wide eyes and it's an annoyance more than anything else, and -

She leans up on the very tips of her toes and she kisses him and it's not at all like her hands, not gentle or questioning, just on his mouth and on his lips and _right there_ and he freezes. He doesn't know how to react to this. Misa is allowed to stay because she's a good little soldier. She sits and she stays and she does what she's told and - and she's kissing him like she's trying to be L, like she's watched and studied and mapped out the variables - but then, Misa couldn't map her way down the street, so _what is this_.

He shoves her off after half a second, frowning down and not really knowing what to do. Does he hit her with a rolled up newspaper? Put her in a time-out? She's looking up at him like she expects one of those things and is prepared for it - would love it, even. Everyone's always signing up to be a martyr, aren't they? Everyone's always pencilling him in as their doomsday villain.

He's sure she wants him to shove her away, just so she can throw herself back at him, but he does it anyway.

"_Don't_ _touch me_," he tells her, stepping back. He sounds less impatient than he'd like and more wounded, like she'd backhanded him instead. Maybe she had. Reality is twisting up on itself these days and he's not sure which way is which.

It's not even been an hour and he misses L.

"You're my boyfriend," she tells him, standing straight and tall, hands on her hips. She'd rehearsed this, of course. He can tell.

She still hasn't showered, is in her pajamas, and her hair is sticking out at unflattering angles. She's so small he thinks maybe he could squash her like a bug. Ryuk is in the other room, juggling apples and making faces at his reflection, and Light wonders if he'd tell Rem. Wonders how Rem would kill him - if it'd just be a simple heart attack or if she'd dress it up, make it _hurt._

He's going to have to get rid of her before he does anything else. Kill her with love, or something to that effect.

"It's not a real relationship, Misa," Light says, calmly, keeping his voice even. "I don't want to be your boyfriend. I don't want to touch you and I don't want to kiss you. I want your eyes and I want your Death Note and I want you to do what I tell you. And I'm telling you not to touch me."

He steps back, picking up the button-down laid out and holding it up to himself in the mirror. He's waiting for her theatrics, for the squealing and little balled fists, but it doesn't come. He watches her reflection blink and stiffen and look like it might cry - it's not a good look for her - as he puts his shirt on.

"What should I do?" she asks him. She's being eerily quiet, but it's such a relief that he doesn't bother questioning it.

Light smiles placatingly - 'atta girl - still holding the towel closed on his hips, and nods over at the Death Note that he'd retrieved from under the floorboards of L's hide-out. "What you do best."

* * *

Watson hadn't shown up this morning, and that's all wrong. Bert's the one who stays out, gets pissed, and falls asleep against the rubbish bin outside the pub on 5th. Watson's meant to call, to track him down, to do the high and mighty berating, hands on hips and teeth visible through his smiling lips. For all that Watson gets up to - the boys with tape over their mouths, the wriggling - he's never once missed a meeting.

So Bert trudges down to his piss-hole apartment half past eight - brings Mckinley along just in case shit's gone down - and shouts about tax evasion until one of the tenants lets him into the building, because apparently Watson can't be arsed to drag himself out of bed and answer the door.

"You sure he didn't get caught in the raid last night?" Mckinley asks after the third knock, because Mckinley is a fucking idiot. That's why Bert likes him. He keeps birds, pretty cockateels and he's got pictures of all 4 or 8 or whatever amount in his wallet, likes to bust them out and pass them around at parties. Watson once shot him in the foot, so they're not overfond of each other. Maybe that's another reason Bert likes him.

"The raid wasn't on us," he says, knocking again, "and they should have been out of there before it happened, unless the little punk slowed down business." He stops, glances back at Mckinley. "You haven't seen the boy around today, have you?"

"Who?" Mckinley asks, but he's mostly glancing at his phone. Bird-sitter updates.

"The boy," he says, snapping his fingers to get Mckinley's attention. "About this high, choir boy hair-cut, not particularly bright. Pretty thing, though. Just Wat's type." He leers because he knows it makes Mckinley uncomfortable, but it doesn't yield anything but a shrug and the snap of his phone as she shoves it back into his pocket.

"Doesn't look like he's home," Mckinley says. Tosser.

"He's home," Bert says, even though he's not sure either way, and nods at the lock for Mckinley to get to work.

He drops to his knees, slipping out the lock-pick kit with fingers that are used to this and maneuvering it quickly. Bert hears shuffling on the other side of the door. His lip quirks and the superiority is a pleasant spearing sensation in his belly. The sound of them sorting it out sure perked him right up, and it'll be nice to be the one tapping his foot, checking his watch - not that he's got a watch - and berating Wat for his absence.

Then the lock clangs apart and Mckinley falls forward, face knocking against the door. The shitty off-white paint-job is smeared in blood and Mckinley is dead at his feet. Bert blinks, can't move, half expects it all to rewind in the same breath, like a momentary cerebral seizure, but it doesn't. He thinks he should be horrified, the customary reaction dinging like a service bell in the back of his head, but there's mostly just a sense of confused offense. As if Wat had just shot Mckinley in the head as a personal insult more than anything else, a _fuck you_, a parade to trample all over his one moment of superiority. What does he mean by going around shooting people?

Shooting people. Mckinley's dead. Mckinley's dead and those 4 or 8 birds are all fucked, are going to have to eat each other to survive. Who takes care of people's pets after they die? Bert's never had any pets. He'd wanted a dog when he was 10 but his mum had just said, "You don't want your father to beat the pup, too, do you?" and left it at that.

He should leave, he thinks. That's the next thing. He should leave. What if Wat tries to frame him? What if he tries to take him out next? He doesn't move, though, and the second shot doesn't come.

There's an eye, though. There's an eye blinking at him through the hole where the lock used to be. Pretty, Bert thinks. Pretty and not Watson's. The eye smiles at him and he really should go, go, _go_ -

"So nice of you to join us, my dear compatriot," the eye says.

* * *

The pavement is dark with last night's rain and the investigation headquarters has a romantic, end-of-the-world feel about it today, stark against the skyline, somehow separate from the other buildings. It's nondescript, but it still just doesn't belong.

"Hey, Light!" Matsuda calls from the front door. He's standing there with an unopened umbrella and a coffee, the latter of which he hands to Light when he comes to join him under the outcropping of steel and silicone above them. Light thanks him, doesn't drink it, and pretends like he doesn't notice Matsuda's face when he realizes he's just handed Light his own coffee. He doesn't ask for it back, anyway, and Light doesn't offer. It's almost empty, anyhow.

"Morning, Matsuda-san," he says, smiling, tired of course, but happy to be back all the same. Everything he ought to be.

"I'm glad you're feeling better. What was it, stomach bug? My cousin had it and she had to stay on the toilet for - "

"I'd rather not go into details."

"Right."

"I'm fine now, so let's all just get back to work."

"Right."

Matsuda's discourse is as stimulating as ever, but there's something off about him, different - it's in the way he's looking at Light. Like he's really looking at something and not just existing near it. Light adjusts his collar, tries not to be moved by the fact that he's being studied by a man with the intellectual capacity of most common kitchen appliances and smiles pleasantly.

"Is there something wrong, Matsuda-san?" he asks.

"We haven't found L," Matsuda tells him, pushing his hair out of his eyes and blinking as it flops right back into place. He really needs a hair-cut. And a suit fitting. And a lobotomy. Or maybe Light's just irritated. He still has cuts in his mouth and he smells like Misa's raspberry shampoo and, although Kira hadn't stopped judging while he was out of commission, he'd certainly been less active. There is is scum on the streets and he feels it corroding his shoes.

"I didn't think you had."

Matsuda swallows, nods, looks longingly at his surrendered coffee, but doesn't ask for it back. "Light, can I ask you something? About him, I mean. L, that is."

He's more nervous than usual and Light can't decide whether he's amused or disgusted, but he slides his eyes over to him and plans to allow the line of conversation out of simple curiosity, when a hire car pulls up in front of the building, waxy and overly luxurious, almost gaudy. He watches, somewhat amusedly, as Mogi climbs sheepishly out of it, apparently trying to sever his association with the vehicle in question as quickly as possible.

His face goes blanker than usual when he spots Light and Matsuda watching him from the front steps and Light takes a distant sort of pleasure in that - it's the small things, the things where people are intimidated by your presence, that really make life worth living - but it's all sapped in a moment. The moment he sees the suit.

Just the sleeve of paisley, powder blue and he thinks, _no_, at the same time as he thinks, _there can't be two men in Tokyo with the exact same terrible fashion sense_ - but then, no, that can't be right. This can't be right. Aiber steps out of the car after Mogi but that's all wrong, a lie, because Aiber is _dead_. Timothy Morello. He'd written it in the Death Note. He'd _written it_. It had been the real thing, not a shopping list, and he remembers smudging the ink on his thumb in the frazzled excitement - finally, finally pay-back for the large fingers and the long glances and the curl of hair at the back of L's head, being played with absently, like he's used to it, like it's familiar. Aiber should be buried, gone, six feet under in an overly ornamented grave and shipped back to his home country to lie under a stone that says _Repose en Paix_ in flagrant script. Not here. Not getting out of a car and nudging warmly, conspiratorially, at Mogi's shoulder.

It's wrong, wrong - do-over, try again, is he still in that bed in that room with L's hands climbing on him, swimming in visions and aching with the air around him?

No. No, he's here. The pavement is wet with last night's rain and he's holding Matsuda's half-used coffee cup in his hand and watching Mogi and Aiber approach the building. Light wants to put his hands on him, rip back that ugly blazer and check for seams, check for places where he might have been stitched up and put back together, because how else - how else -

The names. The names were in the system and the names were not too hard to find - difficult enough, but still. Maybe he was meant to find them. Maybe L planted false names because he _knew_ Light could hack the system and he knew that he would go for Aiber and Wedy first. Maybe all the names of operatives are false. And all that fuss yesterday, the escape attempt, the disbelieving anger and boiling upset, it was all just a show.

It was a little performance put on to keep Light occupied.

For what?

Matsuda is still looking at him like he has something to say, but Light brushes him off, takes a few steps down to meet Aiber and Mogi halfway and bows politely. "Mogi-san, good morning. Aiber-san, I didn't know that you were still in Tokyo."

Aiber smile is wide and frozen false - "Why wouldn't I be?" - and Light loathes him, wants to claw his eyes out with a pen and make L watch, make everyone watch and see and _understand_. Immorality will not be tolerated. Fingers in L's hair, fingers up his shirt, fingers on him _will not be tolerated_.

This must mean Wedy's alive, too. Maybe she's waiting just around the corner, ready to spring a trap. Maybe this is all just a trap that L has set, that Light has been running headfirst into since day one. Since the first night and L's lips and his fingers, all over Light, stripping him of his own will and replacing it with this quiet, floundering, half-false smile that L will make in the dark, with lips on his neck. He'd made it last night. He'd done a lot last night.

Light's got no time to panic, though, no time for anything but a pleasant smile returned at Aiber and a nod of his head. "I hope you don't mind, Aiber-san, but I'd like to talk to you alone for a moment."

He looks to Mogi to signal for him to join Matsuda and scatter, but he's not met with the laconic agreeableness that is usually a staple of Mogi's presence. Instead his eyes are calm and firm, his voice even - not accusing, but still Light hears accusation in it - when he looks to Matsuda and says, "Actually, Light, we were wondering if we could talk to you." Aiber appears to take this as a cue, because his smile suddenly jags genuine and he's backing down the steps, nodding his way out, as Mogi speaks.

Light looks to Matsuda, sees the same determination on his face, if more quivering. "Yeah," he says, "we just want to talk about, um - about L."

As Aiber's hire car drives away, Light suddenly finds time to panic.

* * *

**seven hours earlier.**

* * *

L's forehead is against the mirror and he can barely see his reflection, just the water stains on the bathroom sink, the rust around the faucet. Light is in him, and it should be demeaning - Light keeps squeezing his hips, keeps whispering things in his ears that are clearly meant to demean - but, there's mostly just quiet and their breaths and the drip of the shower leak and Light's hair tickling his back and, truth be told, they both know that, "You love me," means something that's more like the inversion, so when Light's harsh whispers turn from dirty to, "You love me, you love me, you _love me_," as his thrusts speed up, L's not sure how to rationalize that with the rest of everything.

Everything that has ever happened says, _no, no, this is no good_, and L likes to pretend to be reasonable, to pretend to do the right thing - but this is stupid and this is wrong and with enough silent nights, enough of Light on him and in him, he can no longer pretend that he doesn't realize that.

They have forfeited all the right choices. Aiber and Wedy are dead and Light has the emotional ability to kill him and if he were truly what they all think of him, L would not stand for this. But he's not, is he? _Great big fakes, the both of them_. The garden is a lie and the infallibility is an even bigger lie.

L is still the boy in the church, the boy by the new gravestone that sticks out among the older ones, reciting his favorite prime numbers to a mustached man with twinkling eyes and a lot of money. He is the boy in the confessional, hand over his mouth, trying not to breathe, trying not to be heard, as he watches the blood spill across the floor, reflecting in the stained-glass window.

He is the boy gathering evidence, forging all the prints and sleeping in closets and saying, _Look at me, I'm brilliant. Look at me and take me out of here and give me something better_.

Everyone thinks they deserve better than what they have. Everyone thinks too well of themselves. The only thing that separates Light from the rest of the world is the magical notebook and the can-do spirit. The self-aggrandizing loathing of everything around him? That's human nature.

Or, that's L's nature, anyway.

Light comes shivering, whispering, "You love me," like a pathetic little prayer, and as he slumps onto L, the pain of his unsatisfied arousal sharpens for a moment, before tapering down as Light pulls out. It aches and L's face is warm, his eyes bleary in the mirror, but he's not sure he wants his desire to be fulfilled. The spark is heady, violent, running over all thought and making things very clear and very unnavigable at the same time.

As Light pushes himself up and off of him, L thinks he's going to be left to jerk himself off and wishes Light would go in the other room and stop huffing, at the very least - nevermind that they're chained together; just like the old days - but then he's being jerked around by the hips and Light is on the ground before him, pretty knees against the ugly tile, pretty face looking up at L, and he doesn't bother with his usual sparkly little boyish charm, all bedroom eyes and teasing breaths, just goes straight for it, wrapping his lips around L's cock with the vehemence of an apology. Maybe for coming quickly. Maybe for killing him.

Maybe for Aiber and Wedy.

His legs go weak, body leaning loose against the counter as Light swallows him down, and remembers how Wedy would give blowjobs like a pro, how Aiber would run soft hands along his thighs, trying to ignore all the, _"You love me,"_'s he feels towards Light just then.

* * *

**seven hours later.**

* * *

On the list of people that Mello would love to see right now, Bert is miles from the top, but - even though Beyond is tying him up, salivating with a lust for more massacre - Mello would rather him be here than not. Even if he dies. He tries to feel guilty about the jolt of satisfaction that he gets from Bert's terrified scrambling, but he can't quite.

He's a bad person maybe - a criminal, a kid in so far over his head he's buried - but at the very least, he can comfort himself with the knowledge that there are people who are far, far worse. One of them is standing the middle of the room, fastening Bert to a chair and humming something that's maybe Metallica and maybe Bach, though the beat is too uneven and interspersed by hateful giggles to properly tell.

Bert is swearing, shouting at B to let him go, and this must be a really shady flat complex for no one to have come by now, unless Watson has got sound proof walls or something. Maybe he has. Maybe he has a reason.

Mello's still chained up on the floor, heart still on his chest and still warm, the blood soaking through his shirt to stick heavy on his skin, but he's mostly gotten used to it by now. Like the first time you hear about death as a kid - it's hard to process, hard to really rationalize with sky and cartwheels and your tiny child fingers - but after a while it sinks in and then it's just normal, a part of the world. The heart on his chest is just a fact of his existence now, like anything else on him - his skin, or his own heart, thumping twice as quickly in his chest, maybe just to make up for the stillness of the other.

Bert is loud, the word _cuntbox_ getting more use than it's maybe ever had before and Beyond is just laughing, just absolutely charmed by Bert's struggles. Mello is equally annoyed by the both of them, but any remaining intimidation that Bert's height and weight and booming voice might have lent him is far overshadowed by B's tinkling giggle and the stuttered tap-tap-tapping of his bare feet on the floor.

"I'm going to cut your heart out," B says to Bert, practically climbing into his lap, skittering fingers crawling all over him. Mello can only see it at an angle but it looks like porn or a snuff film or both. Like watching something while drunk and unable to tell the floor from the ceiling from your hands and your head.

"Get off me, you gangly shit, get off! Do you know who I am? The police will be here any minute! My boys will be here! Get the _fuck off!_"

Bert's voice is higher than usual and his grammar is better, less posturing, more plain terror. And it is terror. Bert is at least three times as wide as Beyond, if not much taller, and B's barely done anything but tie him up yet, but he's afraid. Very afraid. There's something about B that just makes your skin crawl, your stomach turn. Mello had thought it was paranoia when he'd stared into the dark outside his window and seen the dark staring back, but it clearly wasn't.

Beyond Birthday, if not evil incarnate himself, comes pretty damn close. His presence rings with it. His laugh rings. The phone rings. _Hello. Yes, Roger here. L's gone? Yes. Alright_. The phone is set down.

_Hello, 911? Yes, it's Mihael Keehl here. There's a heart on my chest. _

"I'm going to cut it out with a scalpel. I have a scalpel. I have a couple, would you like to see?" There's the clanking of metal and a shake of the floor as B hops around. "This is a rib spreader. Pretty cool, huh? It was on sale, too. I mean, I stole it, but it's the principle of the thing, isn't it?"

There's a heavy struggle sound and Bert's rough breath and B's maniacal amusement and Mello, there on the floor with a heart on his chest and enough time to get used to the situation, just rolls his eyes and calls, "Would you quit it with the heart shit? Just kill him like a normal person!"

"Shut the fuck up, Mello!" Bert yells back, too terrified to bother with insulting nicknames. It's maybe the second time he's called Mello by name.

He doesn't understand, of course. He's not bright in the first place and panicked enough to only lock onto _kill him_ and nothing else, but Mello is trying to help him. Beyond had slit Watson's throat before cutting him open. It doesn't sound like he intends to do that with Bert. Evidently, he intends to take his time, enjoy it. Better to be dead than alive for your own dismemberment. Maybe Mello would be better served to just keep his head down and stay out of the line of fire, but the more time that passes, the more time that he has to think, the more it becomes obvious that Beyond Birthday is not actually planning to kill him. It's a quiet wish in the back of his head, a sneaking suspicion, but one that feels true enough to bank on.

"Seriously," he says, twisting around to look at B. "Why even bother with the heart? You're just wasting time. Don't you want to go to Tokyo? That's what you want, right?"

No matter how he shifts, he can't quite see the look on B's face. He thinks maybe that's on purpose, some specific placement, but then B climbs off of Bert to come stand over Mello, leering down, finger to his lips: L, ugly and reinterpreted. They don't look alike really, except in shadows, in half moments. The nose is all wrong.

"It's metaphorical resonance," B spits, picking up the heart on Mello's chest and dropping it back. It lands with a dull, wet splat. It's heavy, a hunk of meat.

"It's stupid," Mello says, looking up at him. He feels like all of his blood has settled in the back end of his body. He's been on this floor for months or something. He's really fucking hungry.

B smiles, does a twitchy little hair-flip that's more effeminate than it isn't and puts a hand to his hip. "Metaphorical resonance _is_ stupid. Didn't they teach you anything at the academy for children no one wants?"

Mello feels like he's probably being insulted, but then that seems far less important than the heart on his chest or the murderous smile staring upside-down at him from above. Besides, B was one of those same children that no one wanted. And Mello's parents died anyway - they wouldn't - they would have kept him if they could have.

So, when he says, "Fuck you," it's not with any particular heat. He's more tired than he is angry, and even though there's a creeping, frazzled fear at the back of every part of him, he keeps it down, tries not to process the possible eventuality of being cut open, a heart on someone's chest. _He won't kill you, he won't kill you, he won't_ -

"Let's play a game!" B squeals, turning on his heel. "Riddles!" He leans down over Bert, who spits at him, a husky breath of phlegm catching B in the face. Beyond just laughs, leaning forward to lick Bert on the cheek, which seems to having more of an insulting effect than his own attempt had. "For every one you get wrong, you lose a hand, and you've only got two, so best to ration them."

Mello blinks his eyes away as B does something that looks curiously like sucking on Bert's ear.

Okay, okay, no problem. He won't do that to Mello. He won't kill Mello and he… probably won't do that to Mello.

"The first one is this," B says. "_God sat in a chair. _Are you paying attention? _God sat in a chair and looked over a neat little list of names, all in pretty rows and it was just so nice. Nice and organized. Killed it right away. God sat in a chair and he killed it right away._" He's brushing his hands through Bert's hair and he keeps repeating it, or something to the same effect, all God and a chair and a lot about names and Mello stops trying to find meaning in the words after a while.

It's not a riddle or some kind of genius puzzle. It's just madness. He's just mad. Beyond is not going to help him and Beyond is not going to know where to find L. Beyond is crazy and he's licking Bert, whispering, _"Killed it right away, God did_," over and over and over. Mello's so hungry it's faded out of him, barely tangible anymore. He's tired and he might fall asleep here, a heart on his chest.

"What are you asking me? What's the riddle? Stop - stop, I'll answer it, just tell me what you want - just - "

"_God sat in a chair. Killed it right away._ Aren't you a clever man? Aren't you hiding from it? Don't you know?" He strokes down Bert's face, has a strange, twitty little flair sometimes that sounds more like a joke than it does real psychosis, but then he's got a rib separator and a keen desire to use it, so there's no arguing that there's any _lack_ of psychosis.

Mello would like to fall asleep. Mello would like Beyond Birthday to shut-up. _Killed it right_, he thinks,_ away. _It doesn't even make sense. Maybe it's grammatically correct as a sentence, but it's nonsensical in the context it was provided. God isn't a murderer, anyways, and the little alter boy in Mello is vaguely offended by the implication that he is. Killed it right away, that's -

That's - oh.

"Kira," he says from the floor. His voice is hoarse, either from the yelling or from all the water he's not had in the past however many hours, and he has to say it again for B to hear him properly. "Kira. You're talking about Kira, aren't you?"

_Killed_

_it_

_right_

_away_

That's unbearably stupid. Stupider still that Beyond expected Bert to realize. Or maybe he never did. Maybe he doesn't care. Maybe he gave Mello the edge on purpose. He smiles from his perch on Bert's lap, smiles like a hooker trying to make tonight count and turns, takes Bert's meaty face in his hands, and snaps his neck.

Mello winces, but there's less blood than there could have been and he can't force himself to be overly heartbroken about it. Maybe he should be? Would L be? Maybe he should ask Beyond. Maybe he should stay still and quiet and hope that he fades into the floorboards. Maybe not.

"I thought you were going to cut his hands off," he says softly, after the stillness passes.

There's a moment, right after someone dies, where you don't quite believe it. Everything hangs there, stilted, waiting for them to wake up, for the joke to be revealed and the laugh track to play. Sorry, I was just sleeping. Sorry, I'm still here. The human body doesn't seem so fragile, but it is, and it breaks very quietly and very quickly, and there's no whoosh as the soul rushes out. The chorus of angels is either very quiet or not there at all. The moment passes and then they're just dead, and they don't smile or spit or call anyone a _cuntbox_. It's just flesh that's going to go bad very soon. It's not very much at all.

"I thought you were going to cut his hands off," Mello says, and B smiles and comes down to sit cross-legged beside him, pulling Mello's face toward him by the chin.

"Of course I always keep my word," B said, his grin suddenly smaller, almost sheepish, almost a joke made of self-deprecation. His eyes are bright and not altogether there, but he strokes Mello's forehead very evenly and he's not altogether not-there, either.

"Prayer time," Beyond says, whispering very close to Mello's ear. He's not sure what he'd been expecting it to smell like, though certainly not spearmint, but it fills up the air around him, making it sharp and cooler almost. Beyond Birthday is the ugliest sort of murderer - there are bodies a few feet away in either direction - but he smells like tic tacs. He smells good.

He brushes Mello's bangs out of his eyes and it should be disgusting, but he's tired, he's tired and - "Our father," B begins, "who art in Japan, hallowed be thy charmingly effeminate name."

Kira, he's talking about Kira again.

"Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in the land of the dead. Give us our daily death toll and forgive nothing, because nothing is forgivable." He stops, seems to lose his train of thought, the thread of the prayer that Mello could recite from memory and has been able to since childhood. B frowns, and repeats, "Nothing is forgivable."

Then he's tugging at the chains on Mello's hands, pulling him from the radiator and twisting him over so that he's on his stomach again. Mello tries to kick him off, just on principal, tries to knock him away, but it's no good and he's not strong enough and not committed enough. Even if he got away, where would he go? His only friends in the city - and he uses the term loosely - are dead on the floor, and if he goes back to the gang, they'll only want know what had happened, how he'd made it out alive.

B is here and B wants to go to Japan and B is a crazy person, maybe, but his voice is soothing as he whispers down to the top of Mello's head. Soothing and cruel. He doesn't look all that much like L, but he rather sounds like him.

"God and Kira and all the saints, Mr. Lawliet and his crown of thorns, they will not forgive you." He kisses the top of Mello's head. It's disgusting; it's calming. It's a hint of spearmint. "You're a bad babydoll, just like me." Another peck, light but powered by a violent sort of uneasiness. "You're one of the boys who eat dirt." He tips Mello's face up by the chin. "We're going to be friends, Mihael."

* * *

"It's not Hiroshi Ono," L says without looking up, as soon as Light walks in. "I changed my mind." Looking at Light feels like it might be a lot of work. "It's the girl that's getting to me. Why a girl? What is he trying to tell us? Maybe he just doesn't discriminate when it comes to gender - very kind of him, that - but if he was so blase about his choice of victim, you'd think that the crime scene wouldn't be so exact. No, it's measured, it's all measured. He's no idiot, our perpetrator."

Light doesn't respond and after a moment, L does look at him, eyes trailing him around the room as he moves hurriedly… cleaning up? He's throwing L's old coffee cups and donut boxes into a rubbish bag with an unnerving sort of vehemence, clearing the room with little discrimination as to what he's throwing away.

"Not a mastermind, perhaps," L continues, and there's a wait in his voice, an offer for Light to stop him anytime he sees fit, "but we can't all have Death Notes, can we?"

Light finishes cleaning very haphazardly, tossing the bag down to pull out another, which he begins shoveling L's clothes into. A shirt falls to the ground and Light leans down to snatch it up but misses and has to reach for it again. He looks far me discomposed than L has ever seen him. He wants to pin him down by his pretty-boy butterfly wings and study the phenomenon: the sweat on his brow, the way his fingers curl around the things he touches, holding too tight or not tight enough.

"We have to go," he says to L, tossing a plastic bag at him. He's really going wild with the bags today. "Pack up the files, or throw them away - I don't care. I can print them again. Just, get up. We have to go."

L's brow twitches, but he tries to appear less puzzled than he is. "Go where?"

"Anywhere," Light snaps, the leather on the bottom of his shoes marking patterns into the carpet. He hasn't bothered to take them off. "We have to get away from here, before they have me followed."

"Who?" L asks, thumb going instinctively to his lip.

"Shut-up. Just stop talking. I need to think and I can't think with you talking." He drags a unstudied hand through his hair, shoving it up out of his eyes. L watches it for a moment longer, trying to tell whether Light is legitimately having one of his regularly scheduled mental breakdowns, or is just embarrassed, and settles rather firmly on the latter.

"So, it's the cavalry, then," he says. "Have they found you out already?"

It makes sense that the taskforce would wise up eventually, especially with Watari around, presumably leading them in the right direction. Maybe Aiber and Wedy's deaths had clued them in. Perhaps they had been necessary, a means to end, the only way to achieve - victory? No, definitely not. Being found chained to a bed by a few sub-par police officers, rescued and taken back to the ivory tower where he could recount Kira's evils firsthand - a survivor of terrible personal violence - that is not victory. Soichiro Yagami would apologize on his son's behalf, over and over and over.

Soichiro Yagami would probably actually just put a gun in his mouth and be done with it.

Light glares. "Come on. Get your things in order. You can pretend that you want them to find you, but like I said, we both know it's not like that." He moves close to L, like he's going to touch him, like he's going to cup his face and be very romantic - if unpracticed - and dazzle L with his eyelashes and his finger pads and the huffs of warm breath that stream out with his voice.

He doesn't, though. He doesn't touch. He stands a foot or so from the bed.

"You say a lot of things," L says, sitting up straighter. "I don't know how I should be expected to remember them all."

Light looks at him for a while, then blinks, turns to one of the bags and starts digging out something he'd previously packed away. L knows before he sees, knows before Light smiles this hazy, self-deprecating smile over his shoulder and says, in a pretty, teenage tenor of a tone, "You want me to keep you, don't you, Ryuzaki?"

He moves closer, fills the needle and squirts a bit in preparation, taking L's arm with his other hand and spreading the skin for penetration. L thinks about fighting, but the truth is that Light is not completely wrong. He treats it like a joke because he is afraid that he's wrong, but the truth is that, while L does not want to be kept, he wants to stay.

People are dying all over the world at Light's command and L wants to stay.

Light digs the needle in, pushing down with no hesitation, no particular care for the way that L tenses, breath purposely leveled. He blinks heavy and looks up at Light, wonders what the world will look like when he wakes and says, "You're going to kill me for real one of these days, Light-kun."

* * *

**nine hours earlier.**

* * *

L feels hollow with Light on him. Like his chest cavity has been emptied and the blood and guts and necessary things have been taken out and put away somewhere that he can't reach.

More than a few people have sucked him off before - hazard of the job and all - but this particular blowjob might be the most uncomfortable one he's ever had - which is saying something quite drastic, considering the Tallahassee killer with the two studded lip rings had insisted on getting quite intimate with him before L could properly confirm his guilt. It's not bad, not unskilled, not anything but blinding hot pressure, Light licking and sucking on the head of his cock, nibbling at the base, pumping him and kissing him and more or less worshipping him.

There's a pit in his stomach and this awful coiled energy at the tips of his finger and Light scrapes his teeth gently along his length, teases the way he does so well, the way L had taught him to, and feels it sharp and pressing all over his skin before his hips jerk and his hand slips and he comes with his eyes open, jaw locked and a breath caught in his throat.

Sometimes Light kisses his hips but he doesn't now. This moment and all the moments since L didn't die have been like china, handled gently, set away. Light is afraid of something and it twists itself into swinging overcompensation. No, he can't kiss L's hips, can't sleep the night through without grinding on is back, can't speak in anything but teasing reproach. They broke the skin yesterday, they really did. You can peel so many layers of something that you think there's nothing left to peel, only to realize that you've not even touched the surface.

Human epidermis is thick. Human consciousness is thicker, all a jumble and there are no clean lines. Light is Light and L is L and sometimes it feels like they're the exact same person, but feeling only goes so far and, in the end, there's still that wall of separation, all those layers, all that brain matter and raw energy and those childhood memories that haven't ever come up in conversation.

Is it possible to love someone enough when you do not know them enough? And is it possible that L could possibly be justified in maintaining his current situation without loving Light wildly?

He leans on the counter for a bit, taking heavy breaths, but Light is on the floor and L finds it only polite to join him. Light's face is warm with exertion as he tongues at the inside of cheeks lazily. The room is dark and the sweat on the back of L's neck starts to cool him quickly.

And do any of the justifications really matter? In this world, it's just he and Light, alone, hiding away, renegades. The leaking faucet and the cool floor tiles don't care about his reasons for staying or leaving or neither staying nor leaving. And Light doesn't care to listen to anything he says. So who is L trying to convince?

It's alright to be here, it's alright to care for him, of course, of course - except it's not alright and never has been.

So how do you justify the bad things? Do you fight them, or just pretend to fight them?

He leans over, lips close to Lights forehead and Light's forehead close to his lips, "I'll get you back. I'll get you back for all of it." He's not sure if he means Aiber or Wedy or the murder attempt and he's not sure if he means it all, but it's just a repetition of his words from yesterday, anyway. Yesterday's violence had resulted in a standstill and they need to kick back into motion. Maybe fighting's the only way to do it.

He expects Light to be cruel and uncaring - all the pretty attempts at disassociation - to say something spiteful and quiet and for the night to go on, but that isn't what happens. The problem with Light is that the right thing never happens.

He flips over, pushing up off his back to roll onto L, holding him down with his hips and grabbing him by the neckline of his sweat-soaked shirt and snapping, "You liar."

He pulls on L's hair and jerks his head up, and if L weren't sapped by his recent orgasm, he might be aroused by the position, but as it is there's that uncomfortable tingling in his head - the approving buzz caused by violence of any kind, usually when enacted upon himself. It hums through him and he frowns up at Light with chapped lips.

Light's brow is creased and he looks like he's trying to navigate his next assertion. "You're always acting like I've victimized you." His voice lacks the surety necessitated by the violence, and it makes for a strange blend of vulnerable and power-mongering. "You victimize yourself," he says, and his tone strengthens, like forming the words with his lips makes the more true.

And L thinks, _alright, then_. Let's have this if we're having something. _Own me so I don't have to lease myself out_.

He reaches up and cups Light's cheek, hand soft, barely making contact. "Tell me what else I do." It's blatant seduction, almost campy, that porno-line thrill that keeps the set-up from being too real.

Light loves it, though, absolutely eats it up. Of course. The faker something is, the more he attaches to it. Identifies with it, maybe.

"You make yourself into an object," he says, kissing L's temple softly - like kissing his hips, like L has just given him permission to love him by establishing a farce -, "and you offer yourself up for the taking. I don't know why." He kisses L's other temple. "Maybe you were sexually abused as a child. Maybe the only way you can live with the things you do is to take a beating every so often." Down his neck, against his pulse. Neither of them are quite hard but it's a lot like sex anyway. "Punishment or penance or whatever it is. You like to play the martyr. And you fucking love to be somebody's victim."

"And what about you?" L asks, as Light pins his hands. Steady, steady, it's just a game. "How do you live with the things you do?"

Light smiles at him and it's more confident than it's been since they got in the bathroom, since they started touching and looking at one another. "That's the difference between good and evil, isn't it?"

"You never said which one you were," L mumbles.

It strikes him then, with Light's mouth on his collarbone, bangs tickling his chin, that this is a lot like the games that he and B used to play. _"Children always play,"_ Watari used to say, when Roger would raise concerns, _"and there's nothing wrong with a little rough-housing."_

And maybe that's all this thing with Light is. Hormones and loathing and a little bit of rough-housing to work it all out. Maybe that's okay. Light's tongue against his skin tells him that it's very much okay.

"You could have gotten away from me today, but you didn't," Light says, pushing up to look at him. He's all eyelashes and cheekbones, a prime example of a boy, spread out over L on the bathroom floor. "You don't want to go." The kiss is too chaste. "You want me to keep you." The pressure is too light. This might not even be happening. "And I will."

They kiss for a while longer - very romantic-like, with the rust from the panelling in L's hair and the hard tile on his back, can't be too much before dawn - and then fuck again. L is the victim of the night, because that is the easiest thing to be.

* * *

**12 hours later.**

* * *

When L wakes, he's in a car, Light's hands on the wheel and Misa's bubblegum pop blasting from the speakers.

* * *

**tbc.**

* * *

**end notes:** so there you have it, folks. on the bright side, let's hope the writing quality can only go up from here. in all seriousness, i'd like to briefly explain what's been going on with me and this fic and why it's been a bit iffy lately, if you're interested:

so, i started writing this bad boy in october of 2012 (mostly as practice for nanowrimo - getting myself in the habit of writing at least 1k a day) and it just sort of spiraled. i didn't have much of a coherent plot outline when i started and i still don't really, but i did have a number of things that i'd always wanted to see explored in death note fic and never had, so part of the reason this fic has been so meandering and stilted from the get-go was because it was basically self-indulgent wish fulfillment. as i got more readers and got more into the story myself, it became more important to me and i tried harder to make it a quality piece of writing. unfortunately, i think that kind of backfired, because i tried so hard that it made writing it a lot less fun and the less i started enjoying it, the worse my writing got. on the bright side, i had about 40k stored up when i started posting in january, and so for most of the time this story's been updating my writing has been 30k ahead of my posting, which gave me a lot more time to edit and improve things. but for the last month or two, i've been drifting into other writing projects because writing this has gotten quite hard, so even though i edited and posted, i wasn't really writing his fic. so i decided, given my lack of interest, to make a decision. i gave myself two choices:

1) take an official hiatus and wait for my inspiration to come back

or

2) force myself to pick this up again and see it through to the end

well, as you can see from the fact that i'm writing this now, i settled on option two. what can i say, i'm a stubborn motherfucker. and you know what? i'm glad i did. i feel like i can do this. my interest in death note has been reignited lately and i feel more excited about writing 'Nights' than i have in months. trust me, this story will be finished. you have my guarantee. a man's word is his bond and all that. a woman's, too. the only thing is, because i don't have as many things pre-written, updates will probably end up taking about this long (three to four weeks). hopefully you can forgive me for that.

as for quality control, i wrote most of this chapter over a month ago. i can't promise to be brilliant or anything, but i can promise to do my utmost to make sure future chapters are better than this.

god, long notes are very long. kudos if you read all (or any) of that. this is, of course, the part where i beg for reviews, but in all seriousness, knowing that people are reading and care about this story means the world to me. but if you'd like to see this story finished, please let me know if you can! it would be unendingly encouraging. that aside, i appreciate all of my readers, even the silent ones. con-crit is also welcome, though as you can see i'm already well aware of the flaws. /jumps out the window

okay, that's all for now. thank you for reading.


	15. love is

**warnings:** violence and blood. aizawa point-of-view?

**notes:** i'm going to forgo the WILD APOLOGIES for quality/content/not enough editing (there's no such thing as enough editing when it comes to my writing but i'll get on) and just say a gigantic THANK YOU to everyone who reviewed last time and was so sweet and supportive of me and of this fic. i'd really like nothing more than to finish this and make it as good as i possibly can. lots of stumbling around in this chapter on everyone's part and a surprising amount of task force. i promise more mello and B next time and a bit more advancement of plot.

that aside, if i didn't respond to your review yet, i intend to do it after i post this, i just want to get this out there before i get distracted by thanking you all ECSTATICALLY. what even is this fic anymore, i do not know, but you all keep it going and keep me excited about writing it and i couldn't be more grateful for every single one of you.

* * *

**chapter fifteen - love is.**

* * *

_"We are ally just trying to be holy."_

- _Snow and Dirty Rain, _Richard Siken

* * *

The highway flashes by in the haze of late afternoon half-reality and Light lets up on the gas uncomfortably. He has his license - had insisted to his parents on getting it shortly before he'd entered university - but he's barely done any driving that wasn't simply practice and test-taking. This car still smells new; the seats feel as if they've been sat in very few times before. Misa had said it was a gift from a very rich and influential fan from a few years back - one that Kira had killed off a few months ago. She might have even written his name herself. Charming.

He turns on the CD drive and then, after no more than a minute of bubbly pop music, turns it off again. He flips through radio stations without listening, eventually settling back on the silence, nothing playing but the hum of the engine and L's steady breaths in the seat beside him.

Light is pretending, quietly and to himself, that he knows what he's doing, but he's not truly sure that he does. He'd sent Misa off for the back-up plan, with an address and a bouquet of flowers that she'd deemed suitably romantic. He'd cleaned up the apartment, scrubbed it of any fingerprints and washed it, floor-to-ceiling, of any indication that L had ever been there. They're not going to be found out, probably - maybe. Aizawa had followed him to the house, and even though Misa had been waiting in the car around the back and that's the way he'd gotten L out, they still could have been followed. But If Misa does her part, the apartment will be covered and the team will be convinced. It's a sacrifice, but one he has to make.

One that seems to have been made for him already by Aiber.

_"About L,"_ Matsuda had said, _"we were wondering, well, how close you were to him? If maybe you were more than friends? It's okay if you were! It's okay, right Mogi? But, if you were, well, then that makes everything different, doesn't it?"_

Ide had winked at him, inside the headquarters, where they'd gone to discuss it. Aizawa had watched him with narrowed eyes. Watari's terminal had stayed quiet. But the implication had been there from all sides, and that had been bad enough in and of itself, but then -

_"Your mother and sister went by your apartment when you were sick, but neither you or Misa were there. They called the family doctor, but you hadn't been in. They even asked around with the neighbors, and found that you're hardly ever home, even at times when we know for sure you're not at headquarters. So, Light, what I'm asking, is where were you? And - well, does this have anything to do with L?"_

_"We're not accusing you of anything, of course."_

_"You know you can trust us."_

Platitudes. They're suspicious of him. Maybe not all of them, but there's enough doubt there for it to grow, especially with Aiber and Watari there to push it along. What was he supposed to say? There was no denying the truth of his absence yesterday. Even he couldn't manage to get around that. No, he'd said, there'd been nothing going on with L, but - but he could explain everything if they'd just give him time to work it all out. It's nothing to do with the Kira case, he'd told them, and he thinks most of them had believed him, but not Aizawa, clearly, because he'd followed him. That's fine, though. Good, in fact. That will make everything line up. He'd asked for a day, said that he'd been having relationship problems with Misa and that he needed to fix things with her before he did anything else. And then he could explain.

Then he had gone and talked to Misa. Told her the plan. It's a risk, but it will hopefully shake off any lingering suspicions to do with the Kira case and make all of Aiber's work at shaking the team's trust in him for naught. He just needs Misa to do her part, for the flowers and the long pauses and the little room to all pull together and come to something.

He just needs a bit of time with L - alone.

They're not too far outside the city and they won't need to go for much longer, just need to find a motel, something low quality enough not to have security cameras or ask any questions of its patrons - like why they're taking a chained up, unconscious man into their room with them. He just needs L out of the way while things get settled. Just a bit of free-time. He'd given Misa the Death Note from under the floorboard, but he'd kept enough pages to maybe be able to do some judgements personally today. It's been too long. His fingers itch and he mentally traces the characters in _Hiroshi Ono_, but he doesn't move his hands from the wheel. He tries the radio again, and L blinks awake next to him, bleary in the fading light.

"Hey," Light tells him, without looking over.

L sits up slightly, still looking a bit drugged up. "Where are we?"

"In a car," Light says.

"Yes." L blinks. "Why?"

Light doesn't respond. He doesn't know how to put it without seeming… weak, maybe. Is he afraid of L seeing him as weak? Doesn't L already?

"Light," he says, and Light presses down on the gas, braces himself for the questions, the demands, the - "You tried to kill me." L's voice is very quiet.

Light finally looks at him and it's - it's not what he'd expected. He looks at the clock - it's been three hours since he'd injected L, which is an hour short of a proper sleep cycle and the amount L ought to have been out for, given the dose. Not that it matters, really, but - is he still drugged? His eyes are hazy and he's slumping slightly to the side and he looks… resigned. Is that how one is supposed to feel in these situations? Resigned to the kidnapping, to the attempts on their life. Resigned to love.

Maybe Light's expecting too much. Maybe L's not offering enough. His body has been so covered in masks lately, seeing him bare is like staring down a well. There is so much more there than surface. _"You tried to kill me."_ It sounds like weakness. Light's not sure what to do, or if he should even touch it.

"Yes," he says, eyes ahead, "we've been over this."

L blinks at him and he does it slowly, like it's an action he has to put effort into. He must still be drugged up. "But I mean, you actually tried to _kill_ me." He says it with this air of disbelief that Light wants to trace the seams of, checking for wires. It sounds like the kind of thing that L would pretend to say, while actually saying something else.

No, no actually is sounds like the kind of thing that _Light_ would pretend to say. Is L making fun of him? Should that even be a question, or should he just take it as a given? All things aside, he of course isn't being genuine.

"Did I hurt your feelings?" Light almost snorts, laughing it off. The silence spreads out, following them down the road, and he's almost tempted to turn Misa's awful music back on.

L looks out the window. "Don't be cruel."

That's… new. That's new, right? "What is this? Are you still out of it or something?"

"No, I'm not, actually. Which is strange, isn't it?" L rolls his head, looking over at him, eyebrows raised, but his pupils are clear and cognizant. "I'm trying to be honest. A novel concept, I know, but I'm tired of being drugged and dragged around by you like an animal, and waking up in rooms and cars that I don't recognize. And I could stop it, we both know I could stop it, but I haven't, have I? It's because I can't be honest."

Light blinks, lets up on the gas, eases his grip on the steering wheel. "Honest about what?"

"About what this is. About what you are." He smiles thinly and there's a tiring emptiness to L like this. His eyes are crinkled like he's been laughing or crying, but Light's been with him the whole time and knows he's done neither.

He feels agitated but he doesn't know why. It's not annoyance at what L's saying - although he's being childish and ridiculous, as usual - but just a strange teething under his skin, like he's forgotten something important or left behind a valuable. Like maybe the world is ending somewhere else and he's skipped out on it for a day at the park.

"Why shouldn't I be cruel?" he asks, speaking directly to the windshield. He wishes it would rain. This is a rainy day. "You always are. You treat me like - like I'm less than you. Like I'm stupid."

Honesty, then, if he wants it. Light doesn't know why L is acting like this and he doesn't care, he knows he doesn't care, but it just grates on his peace of mind, makes him fidgety and unable to concentrate. What is he getting at? What is he _playing_ at? Should Light really have said that, or did it come off as too needy? Oh god, L's going to think that Light is desperate for his approval and get all obnoxious and use it to his advantage to -

"You're not stupid." It's blatant. He's almost really smiling. It cuts into Light and his mind latches onto it without permission from the rest of him. Since when is _not stupid_ praise, anyhow? Especially when L follows it up with, "You're young."

Light's brow crumples and everything in him shifts. "So what? You were eight when you solved your first case."

"Six," L corrects, nibbling at his thumb.

"Six," Light repeats, merely as a formality.

"And," L continues, "if I met my six-year-old self now, I'd be a lot crueler to him than I am to you."

Light would cross his arms about now if that wouldn't end in a car wreck.

"Why?" he asks.

Probably because L is utterly self-loathing on some level. There's another level where he thinks he's the most brilliant thing to ever step foot on planet earth - or maybe it's just another facet of the same level. He knows all of L's parts, in one way or another, he just isn't completely sure how they fit together to make the whole. He knows the whole, too, inside-out. Especially inside. Because they fuck. Because Light fucks him. Whenever Light gets annoyed with him like this, he just reminds himself that he fucks him and it makes him feel better. Well, no, not really, but at the very least, it conjures pleasant visuals.

L doesn't respond, just looks back out the window and Light sighs. He feels like he's having a relationship counseling session by himself. "You know, L, I like the game. I like playing with you. But we were closer before, when I wasn't even myself."

Okay, okay - honesty. It's alright. It's not like L can walk out on him in the middle of the road. He's not going to leave. He can't leave. Though they shouldn't be far now. He's passed a couple of hotels since L's woken up - there are a lot in this area - but they all looked too nice, the kind of place where their presence would be questioned.

L is chewing at his fingers. He might be hungry. He might just be putting the tick on. Hell, he's probably putting the whole conversation on.

"Maybe that was you, and it's now that you're not yourself," he suggests petulantly. It sounds petulant to Light, anyway, who's foot trips on the gas, pressing down harder.

"Is that what you're holding out for?" he snaps, because, for some reason that he's not sure how to examine, the idea of that boils through him, slowly, heavily, _painfully_. "That person? The wide-eyed innocence?" He doesn't care, of course, he doesn't care - except, no. No, he does care. He can see why L might feel that way, but he - he doesn't want him to. "I'm not innocent. I've killed a lot of people. I'll never be innocent." He turns his eyes on L. "Are you okay with that?"

"Of course I'm not okay with it," L tells him, watching the cars that pass them in blurred lines of dark blues and reds and greys. "I'll never be okay with any of this." The sun is setting behind him, the fading light catching in his hair, and it looks like the end of the world out here. But it's not. It's just a conversation.

"Light," L says, turning sharply on him suddenly, like he's re-thought his answer without changing it, "it's all word games and rhetoric and tripping around one another, rocking from love to hate, and do you know why?" He asks it like a question but he doesn't leave time for an answer. "It has to be a game, because if I look at you and what you are and what… being with you - god help me, we're getting into humiliating territory here - makes me, I can't stomach it. It's all wrong. We can dress it up however we like and we have, but the bare facts of it are that we are fucked." He looks back out the window. "I hate what you do. I don't want you to do it. I don't want to be star-crossed lovers that act out the roles insisted upon by the tragedy in your head. Your kingdom is stupid and I don't want you wasting your time on it."

He's slowing down now, or speeding up in odd places, slipping on his words off into different directions that he might not have even intended. _What's the game?_ Light thinks, and stiffens to wonder that there maybe isn't one. Honesty. Is it the drugs? It's got to be the drugs. Why else would L say these things to him?

"What I truly want," he continues, looking back to Light like he can't quite help himself, "is for you to understand the flaws in your plan, give it up, and come work for me. Or with me."

He stutters it all out, like a botched love confession, a failed prom invitation. _Honesty_. What a stupid word. What a stupid concept. Why is L doing this to him?

"That's never going to happen," Light says, fingers gripping down into the soft leather of the steering wheel. One jerk and they would go tearing through the shoulder, down into the grass and the leaves and the trees. A single twist, and _boom_.

He blinks and erases his fantasy of release from the compulsion of destiny. It's gone. It never happened. He had never thought it.

L's not quieting, though, and he's not letting up. His voice is only getting louder, in fact.

"Why not? It's idealistic, sure, a silly thing to think, but it's out there now, isn't it, so why not? You were angry with the world and you felt like you couldn't make a difference, and then you were handed a tool to do exactly that. No wonder you did what you did." He shifts, looks across the car. "But I'm handing you a different tool. I'm handing you me - euphemisms aside. Why don't we forgo the struggle? Why don't you just take it?"

And Light, he understands. Not why L has chosen now of all times to say this, to make this offer - maybe because of the attempt on his life, maybe because of Aiber and Wedy, maybe he's just tired the way Light is tired - but he knows what he's saying. _It could be easy. I could have you and you could have me and it could be painless._

That's how is looks to L. But that's only because it would be painless for _him_.

Light speeds up, passing a particularly slow car ahead and shifting into another lane.

"That's a complicated question to answer," he says, after a moment, "so let me ask you something instead. Why don't you be Misa?" L blinks at him a few times and Light catches his look of concentrated detachment in a quick sideways glance, eyes going immediately back to the road. "Why don't I kill her and you take her place as my second, as my protector, as my love-struck princess?" He pauses, pulling to the left to turn into what looks like promisingly decrepit stretch of road. "Why don't you sacrifice everything that you believe in and have built your life on, and hand it all over to me?"

An eye for an eye and all that. That would be painless for Light. He feels no attachment to Misa - would have to get around Rem, but he's sure he could manage it. It would be the best possible solution for him. But he, unlike L, isn't naive or blatantly uncaring enough to actually think that seriously suggesting such a thing would lead anywhere good. Joining him would gut L.

Just like giving up the Death Note would gut Light. There is no possibility of partnership. One of them will always have to be the prisoner of the other. And L knows that, so why is he -

"Light - " he starts, softly, suffocatingly. He's being condescending again. It's the sort of gentleness that Light, without his memories, would have taken at face value.

"No, okay," Light says. "You're not right." Deep breaths, deep breaths, honesty. That's the game today. Honesty. "You're not completely wrong, but what you do as L and what you stand for isn't right either, and I'm not joining up with the same corrupt regime that I've been trying to tear down from the start." And that's the crux of it, really. It'd be one thing if L was actually the figure of justice that he pretended be, but that's just a pose, a headline for the papers to keep the public believing in him, the world's law enforcement depending on his expertise.

L's justice is only a cover sheet for what is, at root, his own personal brand of violence. Self-sacrifice, self-immolation, self-denial and self-victimization. It's all about the self, the man and not the letter. Solving cases is just the way he keeps his emotional disorders filed in neat lines, how he keeps his head on straight - or as straight as he can get it. That's the difference between them. Light actually wants to make the world a better place, actually wants to save people, clean things up, strive for good. L just wants a distraction.

And… Light is L's distraction for the moment. That hurts. He can't tell if it's true, but it hurts anyway.

L tips his head the side, fading in and out from bleary to pin-sharp. "And I won't join up with you, either, so where does that leave us?" he asks, voice gone back to the usual dull tones. He's not really asking anything. He's just making noise.

Light frowns and realizes too late that the honesty from a moment ago had been actual honesty. It'd been hard to tell in real time, but now that it's gone - replaced by the emptiness - it's easy to see. He looks at L, but his expression is solid, unmovable.

He'd blinked and missed it. How does he get it back? How does he make L lay out all of the true, silly, idealistic things that he wants? How can he have that? Light wants that. He wants it.

"Here," he nods, turning into a small, slightly dilapidated motel parking lot. "We'll stay here for the night."

* * *

"I know what Aiber-san said, but do you really think Light is Kira?" Matsuda stares up at Shuichi with wide, genuine eyes. "After all the proof we have that he isn't?"

Shuichi pinches the bridge of his nose - he doesn't know, he really doesn't know - but L's gone and Light's gone off on an emergency relationship retreat with Misa - which is suspicious, that's suspicious, isn't it? - and they haven't yet let the chief on about the newly discovered secret apartment - it could be nothing, it's probably nothing - and absent of any other figure of authority, Matsuda's looking at _him_ of all people as some kind of leader. Which, if Shuichi's being honest, isn't going to lead anywhere good for anyone.

He sighs. "Maybe, maybe not. We can't eliminate anything." He holds open the door to the meeting room and lets Matsuda in ahead of him, nodding to Ide, who's already inside. "But what I really want to know is what Light was doing at that apartment complex. That's not the sort of place Light would normally go. Even if it's got nothing to do with Kira, it still strikes me as shady."

He sets down at briefcase and glances around. Good, good, the chief's still out to lunch with his wife. They'd convinced him to take a few hours off, said the stress wasn't good for his health - which is true, technically, but it still feels like a betrayal to do this behind his back.

"What have you got, Ide?" he asks, before Matsuda can make another weak protest.

Ide tosses a stack of files down on the table, crossing his arms and uncrossing them in rapid succession. "It's just a regular low-rent apartment. The landlord - Jun Nakamura, no criminal record - wouldn't say anything except that all the rooms are rented and if I wanted to look around anymore, I'd have to get a warrant." He's jittering with a nervous sort of excitement, but he tries to cover it up with professionalism. Shuichi's been working with him long enough to see it, anyway.

"But Light going into an unusual building isn't enough for any kind of official investigation," Matsuda says, and he's not wrong.

That's the thing about Touta, he's rarely straight-out wrong - just painfully naive.

Mogi comes in while Matsuda is speaking, holding several files and moving in his stiff way. "That's why I sent Aiber over," he says, somewhat sheepishly, even though his voice is loud enough to make everyone look over. Mogi always speaks as if he's reading off lines, like a robot that's been programmed with shyness and firm duty and not much more. "He and Watari-san, um, questioned the landlord." He say _questioned_ like the word upsets him and only blinks at Ide when he protests that he'd already done that. "_Thoroughly_."

"And?" Shuichi asks, snapping his fingers to avoid the chit-chat.

"Apparently almost all the tenants are long-time renters," Mogi says, "it's only the apartment on the basement level that's recently been leased out. He doesn't know the name of the tenant, only that a man matching Light's description comes by the place every few days, and occasionally someone else - someone he claims he's never gotten a good look at - stops by." Mogi looks down at one of the files, fidgets his large hands awkwardly. "Other than that, he says that he's pretty sure the apartment's unoccupied most of the time, since he's never seen anyone else come or go."

"That's a bit weird," Ide says, hand tapping on one of the desks, not that it needs to be said.

"What's he doing in there?" Shuichi murmurs. "And who's the other person?"

"It's probably none of our business," Matsuda says, puffing it out under his breath, but he's frowning now, just as curious as the rest of them.

"Maybe not," Shuichi tells him, "but he's definitely hiding something. On the slight chance that it could have anything to do with Kira, we have to investigate." He looks around. "Just, no one tell the chief, alright? Not yet. We don't want to worry him. Maybe it's nothing. We'll wait for Light to come back from his trip with Misa and then confront him on the subject. Until then, we'll just continue our usual work."

The rest of the investigators nod and it's just about settled, and then the door is pushed lazily open and Aiber strides in, looking like a disheveled beach-wear advertisement in the middle of November. The first thing Shuichi thinks is that he must be cold. The second is that he's about to stir up something, and it's not going to be anything good.

"Hello, gentlemen!" Aiber announces, buoyant and possibly drunk. "Who wants to go on a tour of Yagami junior's secret apartment with me?"

They all look around at each other, not sure how to respond. Most of them like Aiber just fine, but he does upset the harmony of the team a little bit. It's not that he isn't friendly or competent, he's just… excessively western.

Finally, Matsuda says, "Uh, I thought we needed a warrant."

Aiber smiles cheaply at him, fiddling with the lining of his rolled up shirt-sleeves with one large, errant finger. "Nakamura-san changed his mind. Watari can be very convincing. The elderly have a certain charm about them, don't they?"

"He also has a sniper rifle," Mogi says, quietly - which is strange, maybe. Mogi doesn't usually say anything, if he can help it.

Aiber's smile only grows. "That, too."

"Aiber-san, that strikes me as being unethical," Shuichi says, but more as a formality than anything else. He's curious, itching to find out what's going on with Light, and - honestly - he needs something to do. They all do. Ever since L disappeared, the case has gone cold. Aiber and his… somewhat inappropriate insinuations about L and Light, unnecessary as they might have been, were the only bits of information of any notability to come by them in weeks.

"L would have done it," Aiber counters, standing up straighter. He doesn't look like he's shaved recently, but there's still a stateliness to him, even in disorder, that commands attention among the rest of them. It's something Light has, something L had, too. Something that Shuichi himself is lacking. "But L's not here, because Kira's done something with him. Maybe killed him. And if Light Yagami is Kira, are you really going to let him get away with that?"

The rest of them glance about at each other, and Shuichi can feel it, that pull, the urge to get excited, to get angry - the drive necessary to solve a case. But, then there's the part holding them all back. Nobody _wants_ Light to be Kira, or to have anything to do with him at all. Except Aiber, obviously. Aiber who's probably just - is jealous the word? Because of L? Thinking that makes Shuichi uncomfortable, so he stops thinking it.

"Whoa, we're getting ahead of ourselves here, aren't we, guys?" Matsuda says, sheepishly rubbing at the back of his head, the way he always does when he's nervous. "It's probably all just a big misunderstanding. Maybe, heh, Light's just bought an extra apartment for his hair-care products."

He's trying levity, trying to be the comic relief the way he always is. It doesn't work.

"Matsuda, this is a serious situation," Ide tells him. "Be serious." Mogi looks at his shoes. Shuichi doesn't say anything.

Matsuda puts his arm down, looks at his feet. "Sorry."

"Don't be sorry," Aiber tells him, slumping there. He usually reminds Shuichi of an overgrown teenager, one of those unbearable trust fund kids he'd known back in school who hang about the world as if it's their private lounge, but now he looks oddly serious. "We need to see this situation from every possible point of view. Who knows what could happen? We ought to try and prepare for everything. That's what L would do."

He's stern, but kind. Like the chief. The way any leader ought to be. Shuichi should maybe be annoyed by having his position of authority snuffed out from underneath him, but mostly he's just relieved. If Light isn't Kira, he doesn't want to be the one who gives the order to investigate him. And if he is - and that's a whole minefield of ground-shaking possibilities there, that is - Shuichi thinks he still doesn't want to be the first to know.

* * *

Teru's secretary brings the flowers in with an abhorrent little smirk on her face. "Tsuki, huh?" she says. "Is she cute?"

Teru doesn't know what she's talking about, doesn't know why she's standing in his office with a bouquet of roses when he's told her twice that he needs the files on the Shikamaru case as soon as possible - incompetent woman - and it doesn't even register that the flowers are for him until she's already clicked her impractical heels out of the room, leaving them in a vase on his desk. He has no idea what this could possibly mean - is it a threat? Is someone playing a practical joke?

And then he remembers. Tsuki. Moon. That's how Light Yagami spells his name. _Moon Night God_. Teru hasn't yet been able to decide if he thinks it's beautiful or over the top. He hasn't yet decided the same about Yagami himself.

He looks back at the roses. There's a card.

* * *

L keeps his chained hands under a jacket as Light pays for the room, and if the clerk gives them a scathing look for purchasing one room with a single bed, it's quelled by the tip Light slips him, along with a few mumbled words about _discretion_. Not that it will do any good. As someone who tends to interview hotel clerks after the fact to make his living, he finds that no matter how much any criminal can pay someone to keep their secrets, he can always pay more, and discretion is never kept up for long.

Light takes him into the room, chains him to the bed, moves as if he's going to brush L's hair out of his eyes but doesn't, and then leaves. He comes back a few minutes later with a bottle of sake and sets it down on the bed between them.

"I couldn't find cups."

"Don't want to fuck sober?" L says, cocking a barely visible eyebrow.

He's doing it again. He pretends to himself that he doesn't know what he's doing, but of course he does. Beyond used to point it out all the time when they were kids, and then later when they were older. Most especially after they started fumbling in dark rooms and beating up on each other with their cocks out.

_"You bare your soul through self-deprecating little taunts. You want to tell me how you feel, but you don't want me to know that you want to tell me. I do know, of course. I can always tell when you're hiding your skeleton truths, and exactly where your hiding them."_

L had ignored him, but L had understood that he'd been right. He hadn't even realized it until B said it. He hated whenever Beyond knew something he didn't. He'd beaten him with a shovel once. Had caused internal hemorrhaging. It hadn't been that day, but L thinks of it now anyway, about B lying on the floor, looking up at him, laughing, saying, _"Marry me, Lawliet. I'll buy you a white dress."_ He'd just kept laughing as L had just kept hitting him, giving him this look that -

It's a look that Light has never given him. Not Aiber, either, or dear Salina in Argentina. It's not a look he likes to remember.

"Who says I brought you here for sex?" Light asks, and he tries to smirk but abandons it halfway through. He's starting all these gestures and then stopping them. He's unsure. It's from the conversation in the car, L is sure. Honesty.

L can't even tell if he'd been honest back there. He hadn't expected Light to say yes to his proposal, hadn't expected it to lead anywhere, he'd just wanted to feel better. He's sick of them tumbling over each other, like a race, like a battle where they're only sometimes fighting on opposite sides. He's tired of being drugged. He's just a bit tired.

"You bring me everywhere for sex," L counters, and Light rubs his hands together. L sighs, supposes that if Light is going to go all nervous and teenage, he'll have to be the adult. He holds out his unchained hand. "Alright, then. If we're not going to fuck, let's at least drown out all functional thought processes by consuming copious amounts of alcohol."

Light does smile then, but quietly, and takes a small drink before passing the bottle to L, who takes a larger gulp. He's not worried, though. As evidenced by the last time they'd done this, he can hold his liquor much better than Light can. He can do most things much better than Light can - and yet he still wants to run his hands along his tiny, golden arm hairs and lick his jawline and talk metaphysics with him in bed at 2 in the morning. He wants these things and he knows how to not want these things, but he's not sure it isn't better if he does. Human desire is a strange thing. He takes another sip.

Light takes the bottle back and drinks longer, deeper. "We'll have sex afterwards if you're so desperate for it."

"And if you can manage not to pass out."

They smile minutely at each other and it's something like nice.

"And that," Light says, nodding gently. "But first I want to do that honesty thing again. I want you to tell me everything you know."

And now the alcohol makes sense. Loosening the tongue and all that. L would personally rather just loosen their clothes. "General knowledge? Well, there's a dinosaur called the Micropachycephalosaurus, which has always stuck me as bit ridiculous. Oscar Wilde's last words were, suitably, to do with the wallpaper, and about an hour before the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001, a fifteen year old girl was drowned in Queens. She got absolutely no press coverage. Not a single letter of print." He takes another long sip. "Hmm, what else?"

He half expects Light to get annoyed and half expects him to shut him up with tongue, but he does neither, just takes the bottle back with a slight smile. "Not general. Specific. I want to know what you know about the Death Note."

L slumps, playing his hands along the rough material of the bedspread.

"I'd wager you'd know a lot more than I, if only in that area."

"You'd be partly right." The smile again, but more pained this time, and then he's reaching out and taking L by the wrist, cupping his hand like a lover. L half expects him to drop off the bed and onto one knee. To pull out a ring. It's a shame L hasn't got a shovel for the occasion. Light's fingers are warm and they're gentle on his skin, which is different from all the grabbing and pulling he's used to. He kisses L on the knuckles, one by one, and L half wants to hit him, to beat him senseless, but the other half wants to close its eyes and accept the situation for what it is.

_"You're in love, sugar. That's the problem here."_ B's voice is either completely alien to the moment, or else fits in very well. L can't decide.

"What did you talk to Rem about? What was the plan?" Light says softly. He thumbs L's wrist bone. It's probably a trick. It's nice anyway.

L sighs his eyes closed and then blinks them back open. "Fine. On the condition you tell me exactly what's going on, and what you plan to do about it." Light begins to nod, but L holds up a finger, back still arched low. "And - in what way I can help."

Light looks at him solidly for a few seconds, still not having let go of his hand. "Help who? Them, or me?"

L flexes his wrist, twisting it out of Light's grip, and reaches for the bottle. "I don't know," he says, taking a sip. "I haven't yet decided."

He likes the look that Light gives him then - wide open and dangerous and passionately, _stupidly_ adoring.

* * *

An hour and a half and a lot of sake later, they're spread out diagonal across the bed, and Light - for what L considers a very offensive reason - can't stop laughing.

He sounds like a little boy, like L could be tickling him torturously. He's in absolute raptures, drunk and flushed and handsy in a way he hasn't been since he'd gotten his memories back. "You," he starts, but it tumbles away in another wave of giggles, and it takes him a bit to catch up with it again. "You're going to make Misa fall in love with you? Oh my god." He puts a hand to his forehead. L thinks he might actually be crying.

"I don't see what's so funny," he mumbles, smushing his face against Light's forearm and reaching around for the bottle without any particular success. "People fall in love with me all the time. They make a habit of it." He's afraid he might be pouting slightly, but it makes Light laugh harder so he keeps doing it, anyway.

"I know, I know, it's just Misa - can you imagine? Her following you around instead of me - I - actually, that would be kind of a relief." He wipes his eyes and blinks at L, humor still obvious in the curves of his face. "You should do it."

L scratches at his hair, then realizes that he's not touching his own head, but Light's. Their limbs are so all over each other, it's hard to tell them from the other. Light might just be the only thing that actually exists in the world. Welcome to paradise. Christ, that's possibly terrifying. And possibly a relief. It's all possibly's these days. There is no 100% left, if it was ever there to begin with.

"I don't know that I can," he says, looking at the ceiling, "or that I should. I just needed to get Rem on my side."

"She'll never be on your side. She's completely Misa's. She's in love with her, do you believe that?" Light laughs, but in a way that's less pure amusement and more there to fill the space. "A Shinigami in love with a human. And a human like Misa, of all things. It'd be like if Ryuk - " He stops, looks at L and then smiles to himself, looking quickly away.

"Who's Ryuk?" L asks, even though he can extrapolate fairly well, given the context.

Light kisses him on the temple, fingers playing through his hair. "I'll introduce you two sometime."

L closes his eyes for a moment, listens to the hum of the heating unit. It's cold out today, he'd even heard something about possible flurries of snow from the television in the lobby. Light hates snow. Light is being unsettlingly gentle with him. Or maybe he's the one who's being gentle with Light. It might not matter. He opens his eyes and says, "You still want to destroy me, right?"

Light frowns, shifts a little so he's sitting up. "That's a weird question."

"Don't play dumb with me, Light." He sits up, too.

Light rolls his eyes. "I take you out of your cage for one day and all you want is to go back in, isn't it?"

"I just want to know what the game is, if I'm expected to play it."

"There is no game," Light tells him, and then watches the tips of his own fingers with narrowed eyes, as if he's trying to suss out the truth of that statement. "Honesty, isn't it?"

L huffs, but he's not angry. It's not a logical train of thought that's led him to that, just a feeling. He doesn't feel angry or scared or rife with loathing, and he doesn't know that he wants to force it, and himself into action with it. Inaction is the game today. Inaction is honesty, for now.

He shifts, staring at the ceiling and thinking back over what Light had let drop about what's going on at headquarters - which hadn't been an excessive amount, but then L hadn't expected it to be. They suspect him of something, certainly, although not necessarily being Kira, which isn't necessarily helpful to L at all.

Still, he blinks over at Light, after what might have been a long silence, but not an uneasy one - it's a drunk silence, something that fades in and out with the stars that they can't see through the ceiling - and says, "So they're onto you, huh?"

Light slumps to the side, the side that's closer to L, that warms him in the dim room. His extremities feel cold, like all the heat in him has migrated to the center of his body, ruffling his breathing, warming up the places where Light touches. Like young love, except older and worn out. They should kiss but they talk instead.

"Not really," Light smiles at him, a whispery little tilt of the lips. He laughs to himself at something he hasn't said yet, and then says it. "Mostly they just think I'm gay."

L blinks long because it makes his thoughts easier to process. "You are gay," he says, opening his eyes back up. He can't tell if he's smiling at Light or Light is just smiling at him. There's amusement covering them, here in this room, and it's directed at themselves, at all of their failings.

Everything's funnier when you're drunk. L, of course, is not drunk, and never would be, just on principle.

"Not really," Light says again, airily, like the whole situation is moment away from collapsing into giggles once more.

L snorts, taking the bottle from Light's fingers, which are far warmer than his to the touch. "No?" he asks, before taking a short swig. "My mistake."

The low light falls in uneven lines across the bedspread and when Light looks at him, it's with a self-effacing sort of kindness that aches through L. He tips him up by the chin in a cinema romance kind of way, credits rolling, music rising, and it's slightly hilarious, but in a way that they both recognize and possibly appreciate. Light's hand drops away, knocking L's jaw in the process. "I'd still love you were if you were a girl," he says, unimportantly, like he's trying to make the words as little noticed as possible.

L nods after a moment, because he can buy that, but - "Would you still want to fuck me, though?"

"I don't know," Light says, leaning against him, sunk into the scratchy blankets, breathing soft and hazed. "I'd still want to hurt you, and that's more or less the same thing, isn't it?"

L doesn't know why he kisses him then, or if he even makes a conscious decision to do it, he just does, climbs half on him and presses his lips and presses them hard. It's not like a new case, fragile and unaccustomed, touching something never before touched. Light is familiar to him, part of a pattern, a repetition. And he knows - in the same ignorant way he'd known everything B had told him, everything he'd ignored or beaten with a shovel - that he is afraid of patterns.

Things that become familiar slowly become integral and L's existence is one that needs to be maintained through solid singularity. He can touch everything, but he can't keep anything. Which is possibly why he doesn't so terribly mind being kept by Light.

Which is possibly very frightening. Light kisses back and it's familiar in all the right and wrong ways, and L - he likes it.

Honesty, isn't it?

* * *

Shuichi nods as politely as he can to the slightly-battered looking landlord who leads them twitchily down the steps and unlocks the door to Light's apparent spare apartment. The man doesn't return the gesture, just scurries away as soon as Aiber reaches for the knob, ducking around Ide and past Matsuda's nervous smile as quickly as he can.

It's just the four of them. Mogi had volunteered to wait back at headquarters, in case the chief returned early, and Watari barely comes out of the back rooms anymore, relying on his internet connection for communication. _Caution_, Aiber had called it. Shuichi suspects he's afraid. The fact that the source of that fear is Light is what gets to him. Light is not a thing to be feared, certainly. He's smart and he's quick, but the idea of him ever doing something to purposefully hurt anyone - it just doesn't compute. The chief's son would never have ended up someone like that. Like Kira.

Aiber walks confidently into the room, as if he expects to find immediate evidence waiting for him at the door. There's none. There's nothing. No furniture, not a single item. Blank walls and open floors, all loosely paneled and obviously cheaply made. The four of them walk in, look around, and then move onto the next door, on the opposite wall. That leads to a long hall, also completely bare, but for the door at the other end. It's half ajar. Aiber looks ready to run at it. Shuichi holds up a hand, motions him back, and moves forward himself, placing a ready hand on the gun holstered to his side. He's fairly certain he won't need it, but -

He almost thinks it's L for half a second, but the angles are all wrong, the posture is ramrod straight and the hair falls in unfamiliar angles. And he's wearing a suit, which more or less clinches it.

He sits at a small desk, nothing on it but a vase of large white roses. There's a made-up bed and a cheap bedside table, but the rest of the room is absent of adornments - no rugs, no knick-knacks, no pictures on the wall. Shuichi fingers his gun as Ide and Matsuda move in after him.

Aiber stands there, frowning, but doesn't speak the way Shuichi had expected him to.

Ide does it for him. "Who the hell are you?" he asks the man at the desk, feet planted in a wide-set, heavy stance. He's ready to fight if need be, and from the way the man's eyes go wide and his quiet stolidity goes frazzled and nervous in a moment's notice, there may be a need.

The man doesn't fight, though, doesn't run. His hands go up like they've just ordered it. "I - " He looks at them, looks at Shuichi who's reaching into his jacket to pull out his badge. "You're the police?"

"Yes," Shuichi tells him, flipping the badge open and flashing it around, so that it's caught by the dim light in the room. "Yes." He puts his badge away, hand going back to the gun. Not that's he's particularly convinced that he'll need to use it. Still, caution is necessary. For all the things he might have expected to find in this room - the thing that Aiber had likely been expecting - an uncomfortable looking man in a suit had not been high on the list. "Now tell us who you are."

"My name is Teru Mikami," the man says, hands still up. "I'm a prosecutor. My record is clean, I've never - "

"Do you live here?" Matsuda asks, quite ridiculously, Shuichi thinks, but then Matsuda's particular brand of ridiculousness is sometimes necessary.

"What? No," Teru Mikami says. "I - I didn't break in, though." He moves one hand down slowly, cautiously, to the pocket of his slacks. "I have a key." He does, in fact, and pulls out a small, silver, run-of-the mill door key, in the same style of the one that the landlord had used to let them in.

Shuichi, more sure of himself now, if not the situation, walks forward to take the key from him, turning it over in his hands. He feels Ide following him, providing the usual back-up. Mikami takes the opportunity to reach into his wallet and pull out his ID, handing it off to Shuichi with nervous fingers.

Shuichi looks it over, decides it's as legitimate as a form of identification can get, and hands it back. "What are you doing here, Teru Mikami?" he says, trying to sound less accusing and more conversational. He knows Mikami's type, has interviewed men and women like him before - jittery and easily spooked and needing constant reassurance of their safety in order to provide any information of value.

"I'm meeting someone," Mikami says, pushing his glasses up his nose. He keeps looking at the flowers - soft, beautiful things; they're all wrong in this dilapidated room. They cut the shadows at strange angles. "I'm supposed to be meeting someone." He lifts up his hands again slightly, like an instinctual protective action. "I promise I would never do anything illegal. He said to meet him here at seven, but it's been almost 40 minutes, and…"

Mikami gestures weakly at the flowers. Shuichi notices the card, sticking out between the lush green of the leaves. He picks it up, reaching over Mikami, who seems locked to his chair. The words on the card should maybe be expected, but they still rock though Shuichi with a strange reality.

_I want to meet you again tonight, my prince. 7 o'clock._

It's cheesy. Sickeningly romantic. It's Light's handwriting. He'd even signed his name. The whole Kira thing might have been easier to rationalize.

"Light Yagami," Shuichi says softly, even though he doesn't really think the situation needs anymore explaining. "You're meeting Light Yagami?"

Mikami looks at the desk, hair falling in his eyes, and blinks with a resigned sort of embarrassment. "Yes."

"Did he send you these?" Shuichi asks, nodding at the flowers. Mikami inclines his head in the affirmative.

"I don't get it, why would - " Matsuda stops mid-sentence, looks from Mikami to the vase to the bed, and then at Shuichi with something like a blush lighting on his cheeks. "Oh."

It's one of those surreal, distanced moments that come around every so often. Shuichi can see this whole scene playing out before it even happens - the bumbling shock, the averted eyes, Mikami's embarrassment - and it's not so much a kindness to Mikami as it is to himself that makes him want to skip ahead, past the stock reactions, through the whole scene, quietly boiling scandal and all. He knows this is mostly his fault - he'd wanted to come here, to get to the truth, and even though he doesn't regret his resolve, he's sure everything would have been more comfortable for everyone if they'd left it alone. Let Light have his little secret.

But then, there's really no room for secrets on a case like this. If Light's gay, that's fine - no business of their's, anyhow - but he should have known that setting up secret rendezvous would soon attract suspicion. Isn't he meant to be smarter than that?

Mikami is looking at the table.

Shuichi sighs. It'd be best to get through this as cleanly and quietly as possible. "Light's not coming here tonight," he tells him. Mikami doesn't look up. "He's taking a day off. To work on his relationship issues. With his girlfriend."

Mikami blinks, pauses a moment, like he's on the other side of a telephone and waiting for the signal to reach him. Then -

"His - of course. Of course." He stands from the chair, looks at each of them with a firm but self-deprecating twitch of his features, as if daring someone to point out the obvious. He looks at the vase like he's not sure what to do about, looks at the card like he thinks maybe he should pick it up, but only wipes nervously at his hands before nodding and heading for the door.

Maybe Shuichi ought to stop him for questioning, but he doesn't. His wife is making pork buns tonight. His daughter will need help on her homework. Light Yagami's love life is not a business he wants to involve himself in without necessity.

Aiber hasn't got a family to go home to, though, and has a whole lot of involvement in Light's love life as a matter of course, so he steps forward with the demanding sort of energy he'd used to get them all here in the first place, spreading on his inoffensive smile like butter. "Do you meet with Light Yagami often, Mikami-san?" he asks, pleasantly, but in a way that doesn't serve to obscure his vested interest.

"Not - I wouldn't say often," Mikami tells him, stopping, stuttering over the words a bit. "A few times." He looks at the door and then at Aiber, the big, blond obstacle in front of it.

"Have you ever seen anyone else with him?" Aiber asks, doggedly, not looking to give up. "A man, about your height, maybe a little shorter." He waves his hand in the air at roughly L's height. His desperation makes Shuichi want to look away. "Funny looking guy. Black hair. Dresses like a homeless person."

"I'm sorry," Mikami says, with utterly forced civility. "I don't know what you're talking about. May I please go?"

Aiber looks like he's going to go on longer, drag this out, check every corner on the slight chance that L could be hidden away there, but Shuichi shakes his head. They shouldn't even be here in the first place, and Mikami is slipping out the door in the few moments of Aiber's hesitation.

"Poor guy," Matsuda says, watching him go, which is possibly very kind of him. No one else has anything to say at this point.

They check through the rest of the apartment while Ide puts in a call to Mogi to ask about Teru Mikami, prosecutor, but they come up empty of anything valuable on both ends. There's some toothpaste and soap in the bathroom and condoms in the bedside drawer, but the rest is virtually empty, and it's obvious no one spends any extended amount of time here. Teru Mikami checks out and is, in fact, highly respected in his position, even though he'd just begun practicing a few months ago. His record's cleaner than the cleanest of whistles. He's a regular catch. The worst thing that Light is guilty of, from the look of the place, is infidelity.

"I guess we know what Light was using this apartment for now," Ide says when they're done, standing out in the parking lot. Shuichi had considered apologizing to the landlord, but Aiber had told him that an apology implied wrongdoing on their part, of which there had been none - the last part mumbled with a peculiar little twinkle of the eye that suggested he thought nothing of the sort, and didn't want Shuichi to, either. "No wonder the landlord couldn't say who the other person was. It's probably several people." He says it with a straight face, but the amusement is there, lying just under the surface, barley skimming the edges of politeness.

"Several _men_," Aiber says, making a point of it.

Matsuda seems to be the only one particularly uncomfortable with the developments, and he paces the length of the sidewalk, hand scrubbing his hair weakly. "If he - I mean, it's fine if he's - _you know_ - and I understand why he'd keep it a secret… " and there's a lot of mumbling and trailing off and obvious embarrassment at the idea - maybe because of the homosexuality, maybe just because of the sex in general - "But just, why is he dating Misa-Misa?"

They really should not be talking about this. Shuichi is not going to participate in this conversation.

"She's got money." Aiber shrugs.

"She's in love with him," Shuichi snaps, abandoning any attempts to stay uninvolved. Aiber's got a few necessary qualities - namely, his in with Watari - but Shuichi won't have him bad-mouthing anyone on the team, Light included. "He probably just doesn't want to break her heart."

"It'll break her heart even more if she finds out about this," Ide says, eyebrows going up, seemingly unaware of Shuichi's attempts to shut this line of conversation down. "And what about the chief? What should we tell him?"

"I don't know," Shuichi says as they reach the car. "I don't really want to have to be the one to - "

"I'll do it," Aiber volunteers, teeth sparkling. He's got his ladykiller smile on. Or maybe man-killer. Either way, it's not a happy expression. He'd been expecting to find something here - L, or any clue about where L could be, dead or alive - but they hadn't.

Shuichi wouldn't admit it out loud, but he's glad. At this point, the only thing harder to deal with than L's disappearance would be L's reappearance, and whatever implications that would bring along. He tries not to think this, knows it's an insult to L's memory, but as they all limp into the vehicle, closing each of their doors with uneven, untamed slams, the thought bobs on the edges of his consciousness, not quite stamped out.

* * *

There's something about the cold that makes Light feel less drunk, which is maybe why he doesn't like it. But L insists on going out into the parking lot on bare feet and Light is too airy and contented to do anything but stumble after him, attaching one handcuff to his own wrist in order to keep the hold and barely remembering to grab the room key.

The wind hits sharp and does a bit of run around with his flutteringly warm body temperature, eventually beating it down so that he's shivering out on the concrete, staring at the mostly broken streetlights of the less than urban parts of Kanto.

_"This is stupid. Let's go inside,"_ Light means to say, but instead the wires cross each other, twisting it all up and suddenly it seems like a good idea to turn to L and tell him, "When I'm through with this world, we can go anywhere. It'll be ours." Which works well for a moment, the empty outdoors pausing with his smile and L tilting his head to the side, curious, considering.

But then he's kicking Light in the stomach with the ball of his foot.

The sky is the first thing that he notices, black and middling grey and virtually starless with all that light pollution. There's a moon up there but he can't see it and he doesn't look for it, because the next thing is the gravel, the little rocks and the scrape on his back, pressing through his shirt and rubbing him raw. He tries to breathe but hacks instead, thinks about standing but not enough to commit to it. A few seconds of coughing and then L is on him, thighs straddling his hips and maybe he's just drunk but maybe he's just angry. Probably both.

"You tried to kill me," L says, voice as rough as Light's, like he'd felt the blow just the same.

Light coughs again and pushes himself up on his elbows. L's balanced on his lap like either a very bad or very good porno, depending on what the intention is. "We've already been through this," he says, even though it hadn't been quite the same unfocused, hazy rush of cold and warmth and L's hair in his eyes and breath on his face.

"I know," L says, "I want to do it again. I want to tell you how I feel, but I want you to beat it out of me."

He speaks softly and casually and without the weight that he usually lends things, the effect he likes to add, the dramatic flair. It's meant to make Light hit him, perhaps, but he mostly wants to fuck him, here on the concrete, half over a painted-on parking space divider line. Or to be fucked by him. It's strange, because Light usually minds that, just on principle, but he doesn't think he'd mind now.

"Honesty, huh?" he laughs instead.

His body doesn't work the way he wants it to tonight and his words are all the wrong words and L's fingers are in his hair, pulling him forward, kissing him softly, and it's a taste of how the world would look without structure or reason or law, and Light wonders why he should bother trying to help people when he could just burn the fields and grow things new. It's all wrong and L could fix it with his eyelids and his sake breath.

That's a lie, of course, but L's hips don't make it feel like one. Love is a developmental disorder. Love is gravel against Light's back and a squinty, achey disgust that feels like euphoria. Tomorrow he will have to fix it and put it back on track and plan and calculate and be very, very brilliant. Most days he has to put love on a shelf, but he brings it out for nights like this, because they're a joke, a game he and L play with each other. They're not even really in love, probably, but then sometimes they are simply out of necessity. Whatever L is to him is something separate, though. Love is heaven and the angels and their blaring trumpets and their bright, white light. L is too quiet for that.

"Or a very good lie," L says, humming slightly, tickling Light's jaw. "I'm a very good liar."

L is telling him a lie about the truth, or something, but Light can't follow it and doesn't want to, so he pulls back and hits L in the face, because that's what he'd asked for. His knuckles collide with the sharp jut of his cheekbone and it _hurts_, but there's a squirming animal rage that delights in the pain, and it's something that Light keeps locked down at all other times, aside from the fights and the sex and the scrawls through the notebook.

L moves with the blow, but he looks pleased, eyes closing like he's reveling in it. Maybe it's masochism and maybe it's just some weird penance and maybe it's nothing that makes any logical sense, but Light likes it because L likes it. It's not hurting each other, not really - although they do do a lot of that. There's a sort of appalled shock and humiliation when you're hit all of a sudden, by someone inconsequential, someone you hadn't expected to hit you. But a punch from someone important is something important. Is that a ridiculous thought? It's probably the sake. It's like a kiss only it feels different, but the general sentiment is the same.

_Here, this is for you. I am giving it to you. You want me to hurt you and I want to hurt you and I want you to hurt me and you want to hurt me._ It's an exchange, a declaration.

He hits L again and L takes it, almost smiling, definitely getting something out of this, and Light wants some of it, too.

"Okay, hit me back," he says, grabbing L around the ribcage and pulling him back up. L isn't in his lap so much as knelt upon him, hand to his cheek, eyes wide and pained and breathing through it. He glances up at Light. Light smiles, imagines the pain in his cheek and wants to recreate it in his own. That's fucked up, probably. Most likely. The gravel is still digging into his skin. "I killed you," he murmurs, voice already harsh in anticipation, "so hit me."

"I didn't die," L says, body tensed, muscles lining up with Light's.

"I know, but I killed you."

Light had never considered a scenario where he'd be requesting his own physical assault, but from L it seems natural. Yes, let's beat each other in the parking lot of a sleazy motel. Yes, let's beat each other. One of them is clearly an abusive boyfriend - possibly both of them. Or L is - L is bad and Light is just punishing the wicked. Maybe the other way around? He doesn't know. It gets complicated. L hauls off and slams him back into the ground and punches him in the face and he can feel the scramble of endorphins and taste the blood in his mouth, top lip ripping on his teeth, skin throbbing. It hurts with a kind of necessity. L hits him again, so it should figure that he's the bad guy, but maybe not. Maybe right now, in this particular scenario, they're on the same side.

L keeps hitting him. Once, twice -

"Stop, okay, stop!"

The blood from Light's nose drips hot over his lips, getting in his mouth. And maybe this is necessary, but it hurts in a way that feels excessive and when he says _stop_ L doesn't stop, and that is why they can never really do anything but chain each other to beds and beat each other in parking lots. Light probably wouldn't have stopped in his position, either.

It's just a few extra, and then L's fists drop - there's blood on them, Light's blood; it's so dark out here it looks like oil - but his face throbs and he groans when L touches his cheeks and _why_ did he ask for that? He regrets it, wouldn't do the same again, but he's still proud of having done so. Something reckless and freeing and violent. He'd withstood it. He can withstand anything that L throws at him.

He falls back on the gravel and L falls forward with him, cupping his face, wiping away his sweat. There's a dirty bathroom in their room and he knows that in a few minutes they'll be inside, L drawing a bath to wash him clean.

But for right now the cold air cools the blood on his face, on L's hands, and both of their breaths even out. Light could almost fall asleep here, if he didn't have a world to save tomorrow.

"I knew a boy like you once," L says to him, after a moment.

Light's instinctive reaction, of course, is, "Liar." He breathes the word out through his mouth, because his nose stings. "No, you didn't."

"No, you're right." L's hand slips into his and they're sort of collapsed next to each other and anyone taking a late nigh drive could run over them and wouldn't that be a lovely end? "He wasn't like you, but he was like what you are to me."

Light's harsh breaths have calmed down some. "And what's that?"

L grasps his hand harder, pulling him into sitting position. He doesn't smile, but his expression looks kind - and Light remembers this feeling, from before, back without his memories. L as the leader and himself as the led. He'd done everything he could to wash it away and start new, better, once he's become himself again, but now - just for a while, it doesn't seem so bad.

"Come on," L says, not answering his question. "Let's go inside."

* * *

Mello's arms ache in a way where they don't feel real. He could just be a head floating somewhere and he wouldn't notice. When B unchains him, the blood flowing back in is the first thing that he feels and it hurts like an attack, like there must be some outside force pressing in on him, something beyond his body simply existing.

The water flowing into his mouth - dripping down his chin, getting on his shirt - is the second thing he feels. There's a lot of that, and some grunting, which might be him or might be B, and he tries to remind himself to be afraid, to fight, but the water is so relieving and then there's a cushion under his head and a hand in his hair and he knows it's all wrong, not anything he'd come looking for, but he'd so tired and so drained and so absent of any other option, that falling asleep strikes him as his only possible recourse.

He wakes hazily in what could have been several hours or several minutes, squinting at the light streaming in through the window and knocking over the glass of water that had been set next to him. "Shit," he mumbles, but it barely comes out at more than a twisty ache in his throat, and he picks the glass up, chugging down all the water he can salvage, then looking around for more.

The place is clean. Not just wiped of any blood or internal organs, but _clean_. It looks like a maid-service has been through. The books have all been stacked into neat, uniform piles, the dust wiped from every surface, the used mugs cleared from the tables.

Mello blinks, tries to stand, then tries again. The sun has warmed the cheap linoleum and he feels it gently through his socks. And that's - he'd been wearing shoes, hadn't he? He glances behind him and sees his boots lined neatly next to each other at the foot of where he'd been sleeping. He'd been given a pillow and blanket, too. He looks down at his wrists. There are marks chafed into the skin there and he remembers the cold press of the cuffs well enough to know he hadn't imagined it. His joints still ache and his head's a bit foggy and, really, there are a lot of questions to be asked, but the most pertinent one at this point is this: where is Beyond?

Then he smells the burning.

His feet trip over themselves, socks slipping on the newly smooth floor, and he's not sure if he's even going in the direction of the door, but then -

Two plates. The table is set. Orange juice and coffee and bacon sizzling on the stove. The toaster dings and it rings through Mello's bones like a shock and B pulls two pieces of bread out with long fingers, wincing and biting his lip as he burns himself slightly. "Morning, sleepyhead," he says. It's quaint and otherworldly, like Mello's just stepped out of reality, but then B smiles and it stretches his face in ugly, knowing shapes, and it becomes clear that he understands - and has purposefully manufactured - the strangeness of the situation. "Hungry?"

"You. You're making breakfast." Mello stands there, hair mussed from sleep and falling in his eyes. He means to sound shocked but his voice is hoarse and flat, not registering any particular feeling.

"Yes." B scoops some eggs onto each plate, holding one out to Mello.

Mello twitches toward it - starving, he realizes quite suddenly; when was the last time he ate? - but stops. "You killed two people," he says, as if he can't quite decide whether that had really happened. What time is it? What day is it?

"Three, actually," B says, shrugging and setting both of the plates on the table. "You can shower first if you want - I cleaned the bathroom, so no need to worry about papa bear's cooties - but your food will get cold, and you'll need your strength." He blows on his eggs, kicking his feet like a little boy, even though his legs are so long he has to bend them strangely to fit them under the table. He looks like an L who's been cut off the page and pasted back on, fitting into the world with jagged, unsuitable edges. Even in the airy morning light, the shadows move strangely around him.

Mello's still standing. He really is fucking hungry - but. There are still marks on his wrists. A dark brown stain on his chest where the heart had been for hours. He doesn't know where the bodies are and he's not sure he wants to. The whole room is so bright and clean. It's surreal, but in a very sharp, vivid way. He wonders if there's something he could kill B with in here. He wonders if he should have breakfast first.

He waits for Beyond to do something that gives him permission to make the decision to attack, but he just sits there, cutting his bacon into neat pieces. Who does that? He's a cannibal. Isn't he a cannibal? He's probably a cannibal. He's the type.

Mello takes a few steps toward the table, one foot in front of the other, slow, slow, so that he can run for it any time. He picks up the glass of orange juice after a few moments. "Does this have pulp in it?"

"Of course not," B says, wrinkling his nose and shoveling another forkful of eggs into his mouth.

"I like pulp," Mello says.

"And I like pulling people's eyeballs from their sockets and keeping them in jars. Sit down, Mihael."

Mello sits down. B pours him some coffee. Everything smells so good. The eggs are cooked to perfection, soft but not runny, and Mello feels instantly better just putting food in his mouth. He eats so quickly that he may vomit after, drinking his pulp-free orange juice between mouthfuls without complaint, and even taking his coffee without milk.

"I've never actually done that," B says, watching him eat. He's got a weird air about him, like a predator who doesn't see Mello as prey. Maybe he does, but Mello's too hungry to care. "The jar thing. I usually just throw people's body parts away when I'm done with them. Can't you tell you're special?"

"Where are the bodies?" Mello says, around his bacon. It's a weird sentence and he feels separate from it, like he'd only said it because it's what needs to be said, not something he actually thought up himself.

"Bedroom." B licks his fingers. He's vaguely terrifying, but in a subdued, teasing sort of way. Mello's skin crawls, but like an afterthought. The fear is only a minor setback in the conversation. "They're tucked in all cozy. Cleaned of prints. Don't worry your pretty little head about a thing."

Mello wipes at his mouth. Bert is dead. Watson is dead. Watson had tried to rape him and Watson is dead now. Beyond had saved him. Sort of. That had happened. He'd known them, had met with them almost everyday, and now they're dead and their hearts are not in their bodies and - the man across the table from him did that. The man with the bony wrists and too-sharp teeth and partly drawn-on eyebrows. The more he looks at it, the more he realizes that B's face is made up of weird ticks, plastered together in loose, gleaming expressions. It's hard to remember that this is the man from the stories. A Wammy's legend. A childhood horror tale is pouring him more coffee.

"Do you love your daddy, Mihael?" Beyond asks him.

"I - " What? Is that a trick question? Is that even a real question? "… I don't really remember him."

"No, not him. The other one." B smiles and it rips across his face like a gash. "Daddy Warbucks. The man who's image you were made in. And no, not god either."

"You mean L," Mello says, swallowing. He doesn't know how he feels about that. Roger had always said to think of L as a surrogate older brother, and Watari had called him 'a role model,' but L himself had seemed to prefer not to be called anything, except maybe for dinner.

B smiles wider. "Yes, I mean L."

Mello's starting to realizes that Beyond usually means L. "Do I need to?" he asks.

B's face twists around the words, as if repeating them back to himself, and then nods. "Finish your coffee, babydoll. We've got a long trip ahead of us."

* * *

When Wedy gets the first message, she ignores it. When she gets the second, she reads it with her eyes rolling. The third is not even encrypted or password protected, it's just Aiber whining in her voicemail. By the time the business proposals turn into drunk texts, she decides she has nothing much else to do. Costa Rica is too warm, anyway, and Watari offers to pay for her flight to England.

And, well, Winchester's weather is just her type, really.

* * *

**tbc.**

* * *

**end notes:** so there you have, chapter 15, the last thing i wrote before my brief hiatus. the writing in the next chapter may differ quite a bit, since i wrote a 20k story for a different fandom in between finishing chapter 15 and starting chapter 16. then again, it may be utterly identical. who knows? i certainly don't. i just hope it will be halfway decent and that all of you reading will enjoy it and that's all i can really ask for. thanks for being patient with me and sticking with this story, despite my issues, and thank you - and i grow about ten levels more cheesy and lame in saying - for believing in me. it's a cliche but it's applicable and, as i've been saying from the beginning, this story is made of cliches.

that aside, i was thinking that - in order to move the plot along properly - i may end up having a chapter that is all or mostly made up of mello + B scenes. would that be unduly annoying for anyone? i may not even have to but balancing the timeline is a bitch and so who knows how things will end up. it's an lxlight fic at heart but it's spawned off in different directions as well and i really hope that isn't a deal-breaker for anyone.

lots of love and thank you again for reviewing, favoriting, following, reading, and even passingly glancing at this fic.


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